For our story box club we offer two languages: French and Spanish. Using our Clockwork Methodology™, these languages will be introduced throughout our stories and activities each month.

As we’re a subscription service, we ship our boxes twice per month.

If you sign up in the first half of the month, you’ll receive your box at the end of the same month.

If you sign up in the second half of the month, you’ll receive your box at the beginning of the following month.

The audiobooks are digital, and available for streaming and download. We’ll send you a link to your audiobook by email when your Story Box dispatches. Check your spam folder if you can’t find it!

The audiobook link can also be found inside the front cover of your story.

The story box is aimed at 4-9 year olds, but our stories, activities and games are perfect for beginners above anything else. We’ve had many parents and teachers with children below and above that age group who have really enjoyed the resources.

You can pay for your Story Boxes in one, three or 12 month terms.

The prices are £17.99 every month, £50.97 every three months, or £167.88 every 12 months. The value per box gets better as the subscription term gets longer – £17.99 per box, £16.99 per box, and £13.99 per box respectively.

You can cancel your subscription at the end of your chosen duration of subscription by stopping the auto-renewal. Just log into your account and update your preferences.

If you’re having trouble, just drop us a line at [email protected] and we’ll be happy to help.

We send our Story Boxes far and wide so, very occasionally they do go missing or have a bit of a rough ride in the post. If your box doesn’t show up a week after you’ve received your audiobook email (2 weeks if you’re outside of the UK!)  or anything inside looks like it’s been through the wars, just email [email protected]. We’ll arrange for a replacement to be sent out right away.

If you want to trial a box before committing to a subscription, you can sign up to a monthly subscription, then cancel before your renewal date. This way you’ll only pay for and receive one box. If you like the Story Box (and we hope you do!) you can reactivate your subscription by logging into your account.

We are planning to create more stories in other languages in the future. We’re currently taking language suggestions here.

Not at all! We design our stories and resources to allow you to effectively learn alongside your child.
The resources can be used independently, but we really encourage you to take part in the learning alongside your child so you can both help each other out, just make sure you keep up with them!

The Clockwork Methodology™ works because it helps children learn a new language in the same way that they expand their vocabulary in their native tongue.

When kids are listening or reading, they often hear new words that they don’t understand. But when they come across them in ‘intelligible contexts’, they’re able to come up with a theory about what the word means.

They might get this a little bit wrong at first but that’s okay. In fact, making mistakes is a key part of learning a language. But as a child is exposed to the word in multiple and varied contexts, they’ll develop their understanding of what it means, be able to recall it faster and soon be able to use it in their own speech and writing.

If you’ve ever listened to a bilingual person speak, you’ll know it’s not uncommon for them to switch between languages. It’s called ‘code switching’ and is a fairly regular occurrence for anybody who speaks more than one language.

Speakers choose to do it for lots of different reasons. They might want to express a concept that doesn’t easily translate to another language, or just use it for emphasis. Sometimes, it’s because of who the individual is speaking to or the situation they find themselves in. Sociolinguists have suggested that switching codes like this actually demonstrates a heightened language appropriateness and greater communicative sensibility. 

Swapping between languages is especially common in bilingual families- Alex is always speaking Spanglish when his parents phone him up! Some parents raising their children to be bilingual try to avoid code-switching but studies have shown this doesn’t make language acquisition happen any faster. In fact, exposing children to language mixing may even have cognitive benefits as they develop strategies to process all that input. Bring on the brainy babies!

We have partnered with the Spanish Embassy, several educational institutions and hundreds of teachers to ensure the educational value of our resources.

With their help our story boxes are full of fun and cover the main four elements of language learning: listening, reading, writing and speaking.

Psychologists have long pointed to bedtime stories as an important part of a child’s development. Not to mention the fact they’re lots of fun and good for parent-child bonding!

One of the reasons stories are so good as an educational tool is because they keep the kids interested. Children are much more likely to retain vocabulary when they’re reading or talking about something they are curious about and enjoy.

Alongside every story box you will also receive an audiobook narrated by our amazing voice actors who are also native speakers of either French or Spanish.
We recommend you listen to the audiobook before reading the story, as well as during the first read. This will help tune in to the new language and get used to the sounds, before attempting to mimic them.

Grammar is really important, but it can also be very boring, especially for young children. With our stories and resources beginners will learn new vocabulary each month, but perhaps more importantly they will love learning. Through repetition and reinforcement our brains start to spot trends and children especially gain an intuitive understanding of grammar.