Children’s Augmented Reality Story Bible–A Fun Way to Engage Your Children

My children have greatly enjoyed the Planet 316 Story Bible and the Companion Planet 316 Story Bible App from Planet 316 and WorthyKids/Ideals.  I am so glad we had the opportunity to review this.

The Story Bible itself is colorful and the illustrations are well done.  My kids liked the caricatures of the people being portrayed.  I thought that they were very cute and went well with the scripture story being depicted.  There are more than 100 Bible stories included from the Old and New Testaments.  At the beginning of each story it lists the book(s) in the Bible where the story is being told from in case the children want to go and learn more from the scriptures themselves.  The stories themselves are told in a manner that is easily understood by children.  And while they are a summary, I felt they did well at relating the most important aspects of what was happening.

What makes this Story Bible from Planet 316 stand out is their augmented reality app.  So what is augmented reality?  Using the camera of your phone or tablet, you simply scan pages from the book.  This causes the characters on the pages to pop out into 3D on your screen.  The characters have some limited animation and background noise and then you can click on them to hear what they have to say.  It is another way to help children engage with the gospel stories and help them to internalize and remember them better.  My daughter, Ellawyn, (10) told me one Sunday after church that they read the story of Jacob and Esau in Sunday school and she was excited because she was familiar with the story from reading it in the Planet 316 Story Bible.  

The only glitch we found with the app, was that for some reason, any time we tried to use it with the Jacob’s Ladder story, the color was missing from the image.  The background noise was still there and if you clicked on the image it still worked.  All the other stories we tried worked normally.  

We also found that you need something to clip the pages down with if you were trying to use a phone or tablet yourself, otherwise it was difficult to hold and click on the devise while also holding open the book.  

My children have enjoyed using the app to read along with the stories; however, I found that they enjoy reading it on its own just as much.  It has become a favorite bedtime read for my five year old daughter, Olivia.  Because the stories are not very lengthy, they hold her attention well and we can get through 2-4 stories.  It also helps on nights when we are running behind and bedtime has been pushed back.  Instead of skipping nighttime reading, we just pick a shorter scripture story to read.

My ten year old and five year old were the ones out of my children who liked this the best.  My older girls liked it enough to not complain about having to read it to younger siblings at bedtime and being able to use the app added an element of fun for them as well.

While I am a big fan of having children read scripture stories straight from the Bible, this Story Bible from Planet 316 is a great supplement to help children become familiar with the stories and to provide interest and understanding when they later read them on their own from the scriptures.

If you are looking for a fun way to help engage your young children and teach them stories from the Bible, I would recommend this Story Bible from Planet 316.