Chance to win a £200 voucher - check out the Storytime Sounds app from notonthehighstreet.com and share your storytelling experiences, tips and tales NOW CLOSED

[AnnMumsnet]

To celebrate the latest addition to the iPhone Storytime Sounds app from the team at notonthehighstreet.com they'd love you to share your storytelling experiences, tips and tales on this thread.

They'd also love to hear your feedback on their app; it's available on iTunes - you can download it here: itunes.apple.com/gb/app/storytime-sounds/id883691199?mt=8

They say "our story time app is free to download and is designed to bring an extra element of fun to storytime for families with kids aged 3-7.

There are 6 soundboards for different storytelling themes - pirates, fairytales, lost world, space, monsters and our latest addition, Christmas"

So please share what storytelling means to you on this thread. Are you creative enough to make up your own bedtime story for your LO, do you do "funny" voices, when do you do storytelling with your child - bedtime or during the day? And do give the app a try if you can - notonthehighstreet.com would love to hear what you and your DC think of it (the new Christmas sounds in particular), how you used it and whether it made storytelling easier/more fun.

Please share your thoughts and feedback on this thread and you'll be entered into a prize draw where one lucky MNer will win a £200 voucher for notonthehighstreet.com. Please add your comment by 24 December. Standard Insight T&Cs apply

Good luck
MNHQ

PS They have also written a little story as a starting point for your storytelling adventures, which can be found here: blog.notonthehighstreet.com/2014/12/10/a-christmas-story/

Silly voices and silly accents do it for me (my stories often have dodgy Scottish, Aussie, Welsh or people from Devon in them!)

If the children get too familiar with a story, then change a random word in the middle somewhere. I remember my Dad doing this at storytime and it always made me laugh.

I am a really strong believer that you don't need a book to tell a story and in fact, you can come up with better stories without a book. It really annoys me when people respond with 'i don't have a book' when a child asks them to read a story.

I just want to shout at them to use their imagination! It really is brilliant to get into story telling rather than just story reading as you can really get the kids involved too and they can help make up the story.

Having said that, there are definitely times when a book helps or where using props adds to the story. A simple story sack idea you can make yourselves is an empty box with oats written on it, a doll, and 3 cuddly bears of different sizes, perhaps a bowl and spoon too if you like and you have the perfect props for goldilocks and the three bears.

I've just downloaded this app and i really like the concept. My little girl has a Spot book with sounds she presses at various points in the story and that is one of her fave books (except the batteries are running low and we can't manage to replace them!) so this app will be great for using with some of our own stories where she can help press the buttons for the sounds - Brilliant!

I like the story example on notonthehighstreet too.

A great app and a fun concept to enhance storytelling!

My dd loves the rhyme and pace of books ATM, which is wonderful to watch as she try's the sounds out for herself. She does prefer me to reading to her though, dp stumbles over his words so ruins the pace!
Her current favourite book is what the ladybird heard.. Or whatever the stupid books called, although idk if I like ththe idea of an app because it's our bonding time

We do a lot of stories, and I enjoy doing voices - the sound effects is a fun idea!

I wasn't great at storytelling for my dd till I came up with the winning formula of three monkeys a spaceship and a vampire's castle. The stories all begin with different scenarios but finish up with the monkeys thwarting a vampire attack by escaping in the spaceship, naturally. It's the familiar characters and predictable plot that she enjoys most.

I'm rubbish at making up stories, when my eldest was very little, probably just pushing the lower end of the 3-7 age range, I basically used to tell him a story that was either what he had done that day or what he was going to do tomorrow. I enjoy much more telling a story I know in my own words and for that I would use an app like this, a very nice idea that brings the benefits of technology to REAL life

I'm the chief book reader and story teller in my house. I'm not mad on the idea of an app - I suspect that it might distract them from the story but despite having a fairly decent repertoire of accents - both kids much prefer me just to read with my normal voice!! Although, I do add gasps, sighs, maniacal laughs etc for dramatic effect:)

the key to reading a great kids' story is to go for it - to commit!

I adopt accents/do my own sound effects. The app looks interesting though but I haven't got an iphone.

the best books to act out are the genius Piggie & gerald tales by Mo Willems as the pictures inspire such utter bonkers fun.

that's the real key - make it Fun.

Such a lovely idea and a great concept ... although I think it very much depends on the child. At 6 years old my daughter seems a little old for this app, as she prefers to read independently and only occasionally reads aloud to us now.

I do however think this app is brilliant for special needs. Anything visual, noisy/interactive is just superb for children with special needs. My 11 year old son has profound special needs and I know that this would appeal very much to him and his peers.

I'm the main storyteller in our house. I've downloaded the app but I'm not sure it would work with DS at the moment because he has favourite books that he insists on hearing over and over again and the noises in the app don't match. When he is older and bored of these books I would probably enjoy using the available noises in the app to build our own stories up, and for DS to narrate his own tall tales.

We have had this app for a while with the other themes (pirate, lost world etc) and found it great. We don't use at bedtime (I don't tend to go for screen time at bedtime) but during other times of the day it can be used for different games, like listening and guessing the correct sound as well as just for story telling. My kids like the variety of themes and I think it's a great app. Especially since this is a free app, its very good quality

Tools like this are invaluable to parents of children with special needs and young main stream infants too. My youngest son would have loved this when he was younger. My eldest son would greatly benefit from this sort of intervention now. Anything animated/visual/sensory appeals to him. I would very much encourage marketing this app to very young children and to parents/carers of special needs children.

I think the app is fun but more of a daytime thing than for getting to sleep. We don't have phones or iPads etc around at bedtime, they are too distracting for our five year old. We always do stories, every night. I'm used to reading aloud to children and always use lots of expression when reading, our little girl joins in with the repetitive words.

We do bedtime stories every night and my daughter usually picks up a book, but we only make up stories from time to time (usually when I'm too lazy to read). It's a very important time of our day, and precious time to unwind and cuddle. I also think it's a good way to foster a love for reading and learning, and develop imagination. I've tried the app, personally I also prefer bedtime reading to be technology-free, but I suppose it could be fun to use during the day. DD enjoyed playing with the sounds but I need to think about ways we could include it into reading or games. It would be nice to have a few stories or examples using the sound( apart from the christmas one). Apart from that I thought the app was easy to use and I liked the colourful design.

With a 3 year old that loves reading I think this has potential but I've not yet used it. My only concern is he'll become more interested in the sounds and the app, than learning to read the words. So I'm not sure I'll actually use it.

I downloaded the app and tried to use it tonight at bedtime, it wasn't a total success! I was reading a Harry and the dinosaurs book so thought I would use the dinosaur sounds as I read. This terrified ds (aged 4) so I had to show him the app. From them I couldn't get my phone back from him and he kept pressing random sounds and not listening to the story. So we gave up! I think I will stick to using the app during the day.

Normally I put on voices as the kids seem to like that, so I thought the app might supplement that, maybe when it's not such a novelty it will be better.

My son's five and what he liked at bedtime was an improv kind of session where he'd give me three things he wanted the story to be about and then I'd have to weave it together for him, usually based on the events of our day.

Now I've got a baby daughter and I do her bedtime and my husband does his stories, which seem to be wildly popular with him, all about some gross Mr Twit style character!

My younger two dd's love a good rhyming bed time story, especially if I do different voices for each character, I usually get them all mixed up by the end though

When I'm reading from a book they prefer shorter stories rather than chapter books (unlike me as a child when I loved a chapter read by my mum every night)

The app is a good idea but when the dd's saw the ipad they decided they would rather watch Netflix and didn't really want to settle down for a story and bed, would probably use it more during the day as entertainment.

I am very much a book story teller, even though I am quite creative at work, it doesn't seem to translate to telling stories at home and I've never had the confidence to try, without the safety of a tried and tested book.

I've just downloaded this app and cannot wait to give it a try. I think it will aid my train of thought and keep DS engaged, adding a different dimension to our bedtime and storytelling routine. I know DS would love me to make up my own stories and will enjoy pressing the buttons on the app to make the sounds.

DD2 is my 3rd, and is 4. She is the most interested of them when it comes to stories at bedtime. I have downloaded the app to try- and I'm hoping it will break the cycle of reading the same books over and over. I do wonder if the app will be a distraction though, as we use the story as a time to settle down to sleep. I have found books that have noises involved (looking at you the In the Night Garden book my mum bought) tend to have the opposite effect.

I try to use different voices, and dd2 likes that too. For some reason, my characters always end up Scottish (I'm from Manchester).

i always try to do different voices even tho they do all end up soudning the same lol.
i do try and engage the children in the story by asking questions inbetween for example... oooh whats going to happen next? the storytime app made story telling that little bit more fun! it would be nice to have a variety of sounds and maybe have a area where you can add your own sounds? just an idea!

Don't have an i-phone, so not tried the app.
I try not to wind the kids up at bedtime, so screens, noises wouldn't be useful then, leaving it for weekends.

The kids prefer my stories (in English) to DH's (in a second language). I can make them up - usually with their names in which they like.

I will also change stories - so yesterday, in place of "Aliens love underpants" we had "Aliens love Daddy Pants".

I HATE doing silly voices tho, so don't very often, and never use props (other than knocking on the bed frame for knocking on doors etc)

We downloaded this, I found it a bit too much for bedtime stories but found DD1 telling DD2 a Christmas story using the sounds. It made my heart melt! They are 6 and 4 and have pretty free use of the iPad so they can decide if they want to use it or not.

Like most parents, I read tons of stories and make up just as many. My daughters love stories based around them and I do get quite animated with movement and different voices.

I downloaded the app and tried out the different sounds, I then tried my hand at a making up a story for my girls using the Christmas sounds. It went down a storm and they loved it. I loved it. I would definitely find a use for this in our every day story telling.

I think though, that I would keep it for daytime stories rather than bedtime. I tend to keep our bedtime stories low key and gentle, it takes very little to get my 2 over excited and dodging sleep at bedtime, so I would be hesitant about using stories with sounds at this time of night. It is a brilliant little Storytime tool though.

I optimistically downloaded the app to ipad, resized well but no sounds :(
Although it is a nice idea I would not use it at bed time.
My kids are 5, 3 and 1 and they love the stories at bedtime. They get to choose 1 book each, my husband and I take turns to read on alternate nights, each with our own repertoire of silly voices. Yes the fox in the Gruffalo sounds posh! Occasionally we make up stories but if asked for a story whilst in the car we usually just recite the Gruffalo and the Gruffalos Child.....