Story Maker: hero, place, problem, helper, and a story is born

Ask a five-year-old to write a story and you'll often get a blank look. Ask them who the story is about, where it happens, what goes wrong and who helps, and suddenly they have plenty to say.

That's the clever idea behind Story Maker in the Create section of KidsZone. It breaks a story into four simple choices.

How it works

The screenshot shows four empty story cards at the top, each with a question mark. Your child fills them one by one, by tapping picture cards:

• The hero: who is the story about? The choices include a girl, a boy, a bunny, a puppy, a duck, an elephant, Hoot the owl and a frog.
• The place: where does it happen?
• The problem: what goes wrong?
• The helper: who saves the day?

Once all four are chosen, Story Maker puts them together into a story. Your child taps Read my story to hear it read aloud.

This is exactly how teachers explain story structure in school: character, setting, problem, resolution. Here a five-year-old learns it without anyone using those words.

Keep it, draw it

A few more buttons make it feel like a real project:

• Paint a picture to draw an illustration for the story
• Keep in My stories to save it on the device
• I'm finished when the story is done

A child who has made a story, drawn its picture and saved it has made something they can be proud of. Show it to grandparents on the next video call.

Three levels

• 1 page: one short story, a perfect start
• 3 pages: a longer story with more happening
• My order: your child decides the order of events, which is where real storytelling begins

Two more Create activities

The section also has My Thoughts, a gentle way for children to share how they feel by tapping pictures, and Missions, which sets small goal-based challenges.

At bedtime

Try this routine. Let your child make a story in Story Maker before bed. Then turn the screen off and ask them to tell you what happens next, after the story ends. Did the puppy go home? Did the frog make a new friend?

You'll be surprised how long these stories can go on, and how much language a child uses when they're the one telling the tale.

Storytelling builds more than stories

When a child tells a story, they practise a surprising number of skills at once: putting events in order, using new words, imagining how a character feels, and speaking in full sentences. These are the same skills teachers look for in early writing. A child who has made dozens of stories by speaking them will find writing them down much less scary when the time comes.

Make a story on KidsZone.