Flying Fox's Story Order
Putting a story's pictures in order: first, next and last
How it plays
Pictures from one of the Little Roos stories appear, all muddled up. Your child taps them into order: "What happened first?", then next, then last. A picture tapped out of turn just wobbles, and the question is asked again. When the story's in order, Ruby Roo reads it back, a picture at a time. Three pictures first, then four, then four from the middle of a story, where the order is harder to spot. Every story is one of the six stories to listen to, so it helps to have heard them.
What it's for
Putting a story's pictures in order: first, next and last. It adapts as your child plays: after a few rounds that go well it steps up a little, and after a couple of hard ones it quietly steps back. The level number only ever goes up.
There is no score to lose and no way to fail. A wrong move is met with a gentle nudge, and a level ends when it's won.
Away from the screen: Photo stories
About two minutes, with things most homes have.
- Take three photos of something you do together: making toast, planting a seed, getting ready for bed.
- Mix them up and ask: what happened first? Then next? What happened last?
- Tell the story together, using "first", "then" and "at the end".
Three questions to ask while they play
- What happened first in the story?
- What happened just before the end?
- What do you think happened after the story finished?
Play together
Things to say or ask
- What happened first in the story?
- And then what? How did it end?
- Tell me the story with your pictures.
Taking turns on one device: Take turns placing a picture. Tell that bit of the story as you place it.
Talk-about cards: a question a day for a week, for the car or the dinner table. Print them, or read them from your phone.
If they find it hard
Use the words "first", "next" and "last" through the day ("First shoes, then hat!"). They're the words children use to retell a story. Or try Echidna's Sentences first: putting words in order before whole pictures.
A sheet to print
Print the Flying Fox's Story Order sheet
One A4 page, in black and white or colour.
What it practises
- Putting a story in order. Retelling a story from its pictures: what happened first, next and last.
AC9EFLE03 (English, Foundation); AC9EFLE05 (English, Foundation); AC9EFLY05 (English, Foundation) - Listening to a story. Listening to a longer story, talking about how the characters feel and guessing what happens next.
AC9EFLE02 (English, Foundation); AC9EFLE03 (English, Foundation); AC9EFLY02 (English, Foundation); EYLF 5.1 (Early Years Learning Framework V2.0); AC9EFLE05 (English, Foundation)
The codes are from the Early Years Learning Framework V2.0 (for children from birth to five) and the Australian Curriculum v9 (Foundation to Year 2). Each links to the official wording. Every skill, and the games for it.
What it costs, and what we collect
Nothing, and nothing. There is no account, no advertising and no tracking of any kind. Which games have been played is remembered on your own device and is never sent anywhere. The full version is here, and it's short.
Where it lives
Flying Fox's Story Order lives in The Quiet Deep — words and spelling. It works on a phone, a tablet or a classroom screen, and once it's been opened it keeps working with no signal at all.
Updated