Black Sheep Press Narrative

This app teaches the concepts of ‘Who’, ‘Where’, ‘When’, ‘What Happened Next’ and ‘The End’.  

Written and narrated by Bec Shanks and Catherine Bowen, the app is designed to complement storytelling work in the classroom.

The skill of storytelling plays a crucial role in shaping and sustaining social connections, starting in childhood, extending through adolescence and persisting into adulthood.

This app mirrors the development of narrative skills in children – from raising their awareness of the individual components of a simple story to retelling and generating their own endings to stories. It is a versatile resource which can be used alongside other narrative interventions in the classroom

The app contains 26 games which introduce narrative concepts and provide multiple practice opportunities:

An explanation of narrative - A video narrated by Bec Shanks explaining to children that stories are made up of lots of different bits … ‘Who’, ‘Where’, ‘When’, ‘What Happened’ and ‘The End’
An introduction to narrative - three games introducing the colours and icons used in the narrative approach.
Individual sections 3 to 8 contain a total of 23 games
’Who' - (4 Games) From simple picture matching to helping Freddy the Magician with his tricks by answering all the ‘who’ questions.
Where - (4 Games) From simple picture matching to flying a rocket to the moon by answering all of the ‘where’ questions
When - (4 Games) From matching a ‘when’ picture to deciding when Jack might ride his bike - in the morning, afternoon, at lunchtime or in the evening.
Consolidation A game to consolidate the concepts of ‘who’ ‘where’ and ‘when’
What happened- (4 Games) From making silly sentences to deciding what might happen if you saw a lion in the school field.
The End - (2 Games) begins with selecting the ending to a story the child likes the best to generate and recording their ending to a story.


This app has been trialled with children ages 4 - 7 by clinicians, teachers, and parents, producing extremely positive feedback from all groups.

Don’t take our word for it, hear what some users say…
‘When he went back to class, despite playing several activities it was the app activity that the child immediately told the teacher about ‘Guess what, we played a game about telling stories… it was abou