Toontastic - Iapd App Review

Toontastic is my new favorite speech therapy toy!  The ASD teacher in my building found it, so I can't take all the credit, but I'm loving it!  It's an iPad app that allows children to create and narrate their own cartoons.  The basic app is free and comes with several boards and characters to use in the animation.   There is a 9.99 (currently) in app purchase to get a wider variety of toys and boards to use.  Otherwise individual boards can be purchased if you just want a few.  It's been a big hit with my students in the third grade all the way up through middle school.  I'm using with students working on telling stories and with my articulation and fluency students who are working on generalizing their skills into conversation.  They can listen to their story on the record function and judge how they are doing on their speech skills.  One of my students who has autism has been using it in his classroom and he has been creating and narrating stories in his classroom using Toontastic.  The best part is that none of us would have guessed that he could tell a story based on the skills he typically shows, and we have recordings and animations!

This app is great when working on telling narrative stories.  The app is structured by the different parts of a story, and explains what part of the story they are working on.  You can add or delete scenes at each part of the story to customize the app for the level you are working on.   Kids can tell a three part story or much longer.

You start by selecting the part of the story you are going to narrate and picking a scene.  After that you scroll through the list of characters on the bottom and select which ones you want to add to your story.

You can adjust the sizes, colors and add and delete characters from the "start animation" screen.  When students are animating their scene they move the characters and the legs, arms, wheels ect of the characters move.

  

After you finish animating your students can pick the kind of music to set the mood for their scene.   By sliding the scene up and down to adjust the level of the mood.  It's a good way to help kids visualize levels of feelings as well.