Sleighbear vs Count With Us!

"Once there was a baby bear who lived at the top of the world..." So begins Sleighbear, a gentle, often humorous Christmas story by award-winning author/illustrator Virginia Wright-Frierson. With a tap of the screen, you can watch her original watercolors come to life! The animations, music, and sound effects let you feel the Christmas magic in a way that no traditional holiday book can bring. Sleighbear is a story of friendship, determination and the joy of Christmas. A polar bear baby sees her reindeer friends flying and wants to help carry Santa's sleigh too! You'll fall in love with the little bear and her owl, fox, and reindeer friends. Play hide and seek, tug of war, and practice flying with the little bear and her friends. Santa and Mrs. Claus come up with a wonderful solution that makes little bear so happy! The text appears on the pages in either English or Spanish, chosen by touching the language button in the main menu hidden at the top of each page. Accompanied by soft music, the story is beautifully read in either language or can be muted so that it can be read to a younger child by an adult or older child. Children can interact with the text by touching a small red mitten on each page to produce sound and action events. Touching the Christmas tree green arrow turns each page. As an author/illustrator, Virginia Wright-Frierson is most noted for her scrapbook series of three nature books, each of which won placement on the John Burroughs List of Nature Books for Young Readers (A Desert Scrapbook, An Island Scrapbook, and a North American Rainforest Scrapbook). Virginia is also a fine artist, most well known for the large, inspiring mural painted on canvas and installed permanently on the ceiling of the Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Her recent exhibitions have included watercolor and oil paintings.

This Count with Us: A Nursery Rhyme Book is a marvel that brings numbers and animals to life by combining brilliant illustrations and storytelling in both languages, American Sign Language (ASL) and English. It is impossible for the child to view this story just once and invite them to view it again and again. The story starts with asking the children to count the animals. It ends with asking them to read the story again and act like the animals. It shows a caterpillar crawling, two goats leaping, three ducks waddling, four fish swimming, and more. There are rhythms in both languages including the use of the same patterns in words, handshapes, and movements. The delightful language play is perfect for any child learning or enjoying literacy. This app will make it enjoyable to read, spell, and sign numbers, animals, and their movements in both languages. Packed with over 42 vocabulary words, signed and fingerspelled, and with 12 pages of ASL videos, this app is a proud addition to our collection of award-winning high-quality VL2 Storybook Apps. Created by Dr. Melissa Herzig and the all-deaf team including a talented storyteller, Jesse Jones III, and amazing illustrations by award-winning artist, Yiqiao Wang, this VL2 Storybook App is designed for the magic reading experience that the children and their families will delight in viewing and reading repeatedly. Special thanks to the Dawn Sign Press Publishing Company for the use of their videographers and video recording studio, and to the team at the Motion Light Lab for building this app. VL2 Storybook Apps are designed based on proven research in bilingualism and visual learning to provide young visual learners with an optimal reading experience. Be sure to check out our collection of more storybook apps!