From scary to amazing: a shark game for curious little kids

What your child learns from a shark

A shark is a big topic in a small package. In one short game, your child meets words like gills, fins and cartilage. They compare lengths, find where sharks live on a world map and sort food from rubbish.

We hope for a bigger lesson too: you can find out the truth about something that feels scary. The game explains why a shark is gray on top and white underneath, so your child meets an animal, not a monster.

Every fact comes with something to do: tap, drag, pull or swim. And every fact is short and read aloud, so your child does not have to wait for a grown-up to read it.

• Language: naming body parts and hearing them used in short, clear sentences
• Measuring: seeing a baby, papa and mama shark next to their own name, a grown-up and a car
• World knowledge: where great white sharks swim, and that some cross whole oceans
• Care for nature: food belongs in the sea, plastic and shoes do not

Why we made this game

Questions about sharks can come with a worried face. Does it bite? Would it eat me? We did not want to answer them with big teeth and drama.

We wanted a calmer answer. In our game the shark is hungry for seals and fish. Offer it a shoe or an ice cream, and it says yuck. We hope children laugh, and that the fear gets a little smaller.

We also wanted children to see that sharks need us. There are not many great white sharks left, and several countries protect them. In U.S. waters, for example, nobody is allowed to catch one and keep it. Keeping plastic out of the sea is something even a small child can help with.

All instructions, facts and questions are read aloud, so a child who cannot read yet can explore alone. A grown-up can still sit next to them and talk about what they hear.

What children love about it

On the tooth screen, children pull out a tooth and watch the next one slide forward to fill the gap. They can pull another, and another, and a counter keeps track.

There is also a real-size tooth. On an iPad, the game shows a great white's tooth at about its true size, around 6 centimeters. Your child can hold a finger next to it.

On the map, they follow real tagged sharks on their long trips. One great white swam from Africa to Australia and back again, more than 20,000 kilometers.

In the swim game, your child becomes the shark. They steer with a finger, gobble little fish and dodge floating plastic. At the end of the quiz, every right answer is food, and their shark grows longer.

For a quieter moment, there is a memory game with 4, 6 or 8 pairs of seals, squid, turtles, dolphins and more.

How to play it together

Start with the size screen, side by side. Ask your child to guess first: is a mama shark longer than Dad? Then tap, listen and find out together if the guess was right.

After playing, keep the shark talk going away from the screen. At bath time, ask how a shark breathes. At the beach or the aquarium, look for a gray back and a white belly.

If your child likes to draw, ask for a shark drawn from memory. Then check the body screen together. Did they remember the gills? The triangle fin on the back?