Story Time on an Ipad can be a great bonding experience and just as enjoyable as reading normal books
My family drives a lot as we live between 2 homes. During the week we live in Brooklyn NYC and during the weekends we live 90 miles North of NYC in the township of Rhinebeck Upstate NY. To break that down, on a good day, it is a 2 hour drive each way. But, when traffic is bad it has been known to take 5 hours for us to get from one to another.
Because of this, our Son has had his very own Ipad from a very young age – 7 months to be exact! As Miles has grown the apps on his Ipad have also changed. At first, we just used to put movies on for him to watch, but as he became older he wanted to interact more and play with games. Thankfully, there are so many learning applications on the Ipad with programs specifically designed for toddlers. As he is now hitting the 3 year mark, his choices are again changing, with him currently really being into stories.
One of the issues I have had with downloading stories on his Ipad is that, for the most part you can only download one story per each individual app which is really annoying. I have been looking for an app where you can have one with many stories inside it and this week I was super excited to find one from good old Walt Disney. The new Disney Storytime houses up to 20 stories on the one app – LOVE that! I downloaded 10 books straight off the bat for Miles Storm which is keeping him busy!
Here are a few reasons why I am a big fan of this app at the moment;
- I love that you can design your own avatar with your child’s photo in it (see my Son’s below, I think he looks cute as a cartoon character) with options including choices on hair color and shirt color
- I love that you do not have to leave the app to add new books, you can do it all on-screen by adding credit and then Miles can choose the books he likes
- I love that there are so many books to choose for, this app actually has the largest collection of Disney stories available, with Miles choosing – Always Time for A Laugh, Starry Night, Rapunzel’s Story, Puppy Trouble, A Tight Squeeze, Down to Earth, Super Annoying, A day without Pumbaa, Watch Dug and Radiator Springs Road Trip
- I love that viewing options can be personalized to either “Read by Myself” and “Read to Me”
- I love that you can record your own voice in place of the default reader which I actually did for Rapunzel’s Story, so now every time Miles listens to it he will hear his Mummy reading the story to him (cute)
- I love that when a story is being read by the default voice each word is highlighted on the screen, meaning that Miles can start to associate words/letters with the sound when it is pronounced
I know, I know there’s a lot of LOVE going on around here!
Disney Storytime is available for $1.99 on iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. Parents can buy credits (2 credits for $2.99, 5 credits for $4.99, and 17 credits [all books] for $8.99).
I definitely recommend checking it out if you are looking to simplify your child’s online story choices. And how can you go wrong, Walt Disney was a great storyteller with a wonderful imagination who loved children so very much! His stories definitely brought me great pleasure growing up, and it’s wonderful to see the same thing happening with Miles Storm.
What’s your favorite Disney Story?
Miles Storm as the Avatar on his Disney Storytime book shelf
