Screentime! Is it a dirty word in your home? Is it a constant battle for finding that happy medium? What if you could entertain and educate your child with animated storybooks? Now that doesn’t sounds like bad screentime, does it? But you would want to make sure it was safe, and you’d want to encourage reading and learning too. Recently, I had the opportunity to check out Vooks and frankly it is a great, safe and fun storybook learning for kids that I can feel good about using. (Psst — don’t stop reading, there’s a giveaway :))
What is Vooks?
Vooks is a streaming library of kid-safe, animated storybooks that reads to your kids in a colorful, animated fashiong. And, it’s ad-free. The entire libaray has positive themed stories brought to like through quality narration and vibrate animation. These interactive storybooks help encourage a love for reading and provides some quality entertainment.
Vooks strengthens literacy and vocabulary while promotions independent learning. The books are positive and encourage qualities like freindship, kindness, and love. And…there are some great included printable lesson plans, discussion topics, and actiities too which is great for those wanting to add additional depth to the books they are reading.
I would say Vooks is 100% kid-friendly and parent approved. My kids certainly think so!
Getting started
Since this week was Earth Day week, we decided to use Vooks to explore some Earth Day topics. My kids are elementary and older but my two youngest, 7 and 11, really enjoyed the Earth Day books. Even my teen was intrigued by the animation of the storybook. (I enjoyed them too!) What was cool is the Vooks has a great Earth Day resource guide that provided us with a book list as well as accompanying activities and discussion questions. We started with Curious George Plants a Tree by Margaret & H.A. Reyand then moved through the list. The lesson plan provided a great introduction to Earth Day and then the list of activities, book list, and templates for the activities. There were discussion questions and a coloring sheet as well. It was a great little Earth Day lesson that the whole family enjoyed!
We also enjoyed Earth Yay! by Jonathan Sundy. So fun listening to Earth meet their other planetary friends was fun. This was a great lesson in astronomy too so even if you aren’t doing something Earth Day related, this book would be great for a planetary adventure!
We also enjoyed The Boy Who Grew a Forest by Sophia Gholz. My 11 year old son said “Now I want to grow plant a forest.” Which took us into a long discussion about how that would or would not be possible and how to go about it. Great discussion. So then we grabbed the lesson plan for the book, because most books in Vooks have their own lesson plan for that book too. This fun activity in the lesson plan allowed us to discuss the book as we moved through it. I thought that was super fun!
There is a large choice of books in VOOKS so you are sure to find something for everyone. The kids enjoyed watching these books and I love that the words appear on the screen and can be followed along. I also liked that the words highlight as the book is read. Very nice!
We used on computer, tablet, and iphone as well as finding an app on our smarttv, though we couldn’t get it to activate so we just went to the tv web browser and watched on the big screen. Either way, it’s a great way to get more books into your day!
Extras
You can set up personal profiles for each kid and then you or they can “heart” the books of interest to be easily accssible from your personal favorites at a later date. My daughter loved that she could go through and pick out books and then go back and watch them later. She had fun picture out her avator for her profile and then hearting her favs. You can even have one for you as the parent. There is a “continue watching” section as well as a “New Releases” and “Popular Titles” section if you need some ideas on where to start. There is also an option to choose by level like Preschool or Elementary as well a Animal, Seasonal, Be Kind, Be Brave, and other topics of interest.
GIVEAWAY TIME
Want to win your own one-year subscription to VOOKS? Just follow @vooks on Facebook or Instagram and when you have finished, comment DONE with the name of a book you are excited to read with your family in the comments below for your entry into the giveaway. Giveaway deadline 4/28/2021. One winner will received a one-year subscription to VOOKS.
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Disclosure: Many thanks to Vooks for providing this product/product information for review. Opinions are 100% my own and NOT influenced by monetary compensation. I did receive a sample of the product in exchange for this review and post.
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