STEM
TokenTales
Ever wonder how AI "writes"? Train a tiny model on a nursery rhyme, then predict what it will say next — and discover the secret: a language model just counts which word tends to follow which, then guesses the most common one. TokenTales builds a real (tiny) next-word model right in your browser — no chatbot, no internet, nothing leaves your device — so you can see exactly how the trick works, and even watch the model write. Ages 9–14.
▶ Play it nowBuilt for sittings of about 20 minutes on the screen. That is our design budget, not a measurement.
Meet your mentor
Every Spark & Anvil app has a friendly mentor character that demonstrates, asks, and patiently scaffolds learning.
Mentored by Nova
#6d5bd0 Characters who teach
Meet the cast
TokenTales' crew ARE the pieces of a language model — the cast IS the idea: Token is one word (a model reads and predicts one at a time), Tally is the counter (how often each word followed another — the model's whole memory), Gram is the look-back (a bigram uses the last 1 word, a trigram the last 2). Mentor Nova keeps the honest point: the model has no idea what words MEAN — it predicts the word that most often came next; knowing that is knowing how AI really works. Nothing leaves the device.
Token
A single word (or piece of a word) — a language model reads and predicts one token at a time
Tally
The counter — how many times each word followed another; the counts ARE the model's memory, nothing more
Gram
The look-back — a bigram uses the last 1 word, a trigram the last 2; more look-back = smoother writing
Nova
the model has no idea what words MEAN; it predicts the most common next word. Knowing that is knowing how AI really works.
What's inside
Learning goal
Ever wonder how AI "writes"? Train a tiny model on a nursery rhyme, then predict what it will say next — and discover the secret: a language model just counts which word tends to follow which, then guesses the most common one. TokenTales builds a real (tiny) next-word model right in your browser — no chatbot, no internet, nothing leaves your device — so you can see exactly how the trick works, and even watch the model write. Ages 9–14.
Mentored by Nova — no data leaves the device.
How TokenTales handles your kid's data
- ✅ All progress, settings, and AI-generated content stays on the device
- ✅ No analytics, no tracking, no third-party SDKs
- ✅ Free — no ads, no in-app purchases
- ✅ No personal information collected from children — in line with COPPA (updated by the 2026 FTC amendments)
- ✅ No chat with strangers — play-together rooms use a short code and preset emotes, never typed messages