For grown-ups
The kids’ zones — Play and Story — are where children spend their time. This is the grown-up side-door: what the apps do, why they’re safe, how they map to your curriculum, who we are, and how to get involved.
Open the Family Dashboard → — a private, on-device picture of everything your learner has explored (no account, nothing collected).
See what this app knows → — exactly what’s stored on this device and every rule our AI follows.
What each kind of app keeps → — a plain breakdown by kind of app: practice, predict-and-check, board games, AI-literacy, and shared settings.
How our AI works — and what it will never do → — the only kinds of AI a child meets, and the guarantees behind them: never a free chat, never hands over the answer, never a companion.
Block-building games & your family → — a plain safety guide for kids who love block-building sandbox games: our safe-by-design building apps, the family controls for the popular game, and how to spot when something online is off.
448 apps · Free forever · No ads · No in-app purchases · No tracking · On-device AI · 501(c)(3) non-profit (pending)
Start here if you look after kids at home or in a classroom.
How we design for learning, care, and curiosity.
We’re restructuring as a non-profit so the mission outlasts any product cycle.
Support the mission or help us build.
Everything stays on the device. No ads, no tracking, COPPA-aligned.
Download the entire portfolio — every game, story, and book — as one self-contained package on a USB stick or external drive. It works with no internet at all, and networked features light up automatically wherever a connection is available — built for classrooms, libraries, rural and remote homes, and air-gapped labs.
Privacy you can actually verify. Designed for face-to-face play.
Spark & Anvil is restructuring as a 501(c)(3) non-profit. All apps remain free forever. Read the mission →
Zero advertising, ever. No banner ads, no rewarded video, no sponsored content.
The apps are free — there's nothing to buy. Your kid can't accidentally purchase anything. No power-ups, no premium currency, no upgrade nags.
No analytics SDKs tracking your kid. We use Plausible (privacy-first, no cookies) on our website only — never inside the apps.
The apps don't embed Facebook, Google, AppsFlyer, or any other tracking framework. Just Apple's own frameworks plus our open-source ForgeKit library.
All your kid's progress, settings, and AI-generated content stays on their device. Nothing uploads to our servers (we don't even have user-facing servers). The 2026 COPPA rules now regulate biometrics, voiceprints, and location — we collect none of it, so unlike apps that gather data and then ask permission, we have nothing to disclose in the first place.
Fair question — every app claims to teach. Here's the honest answer: our approach is grounded in decades of learning research and a method already proven in the market.
A 2020 review of two decades of educational games (Naul & Liu) found four narrative features that predict whether a learning app actually teaches. Our apps are built to land all four.
Story Time Chess teaches chess through a recurring cast using the same framework — and won Toy of the Year, a TIME Best Invention, and a Webby. We apply that method across the whole library, not one game — and our own chess apps (GambitTales for ages 9–14, PawnPals for the youngest) bring it to a free, self-guided, on-device screen with no subscription and no account: a calmer, no-cost way in that a child can explore alone.
Bruner showed kids build understanding through story, not just rules. Greenspan's DIR/Floortime adds that abstract ideas stick when they arrive with a feeling — which is why each character feels something while they teach.
We're early — we don't yet publish our own outcome study, and we won't cite a number we haven't measured. What we can show is the research and the working method. When we do report results, it will be an honest signal: whether a skill learned in one app actually transfers to a related one — measured from anonymous, on-device, no-identifier aggregates, never a per-child profile. See the full research behind our approach →
Spark & Anvil apps are on-device first. Your kid's progress, settings, AI-generated content, and any creations they make stay on their iPhone, iPad, or Mac.
We use Apple's SwiftData framework for local storage, FoundationModels for on-device AI generation (no cloud calls), and SwiftUI for the interface. We don't operate any user-facing servers — there is literally no backend collecting your kid's data.
This is the opposite of how much of the kids' software industry works. In 2026, edtech companies are being sued — and investigated by the FTC — over collecting and even monetizing children's data, which is a big part of why the COPPA rules were tightened. We're not defending our data practices in court, because there is nothing to defend: an app that collects nothing has nothing to leak, sell, or disclose. You don't have to take our word for it — the architecture keeps the promise for us.
For our company website (this site), we use Plausible — a privacy-first, cookie-free analytics tool. It tells us roughly how many people visited each page. It does not track individuals, store cookies, or sell data.
Read the full privacy policy for details. The parent-friendly summary is at the top; the comprehensive legal version follows.
Most kids' AI in 2026 is a cloud chatbot your child talks to. Ours is the opposite, on purpose: it runs on the device, it can't chat, and it can't give away the answer.
The AI mentor runs on your kid's device with Apple's FoundationModels. Questions, answers, and anything your kid types never leave the iPad — there's no chatbot server to leak, log, or train on your kid.
Our in-app AI is not a companion your kid chats with. It's a novice character your kid teaches: the kid explains the idea and catches the character's mistakes. There's no open-ended "talk to the bot" surface — nothing for a child to form an unhealthy attachment to.
The mentor is built to ask, never to answer — Socratic by construction. It surfaces your kid's own thinking and offers a gentle faded hint, but it structurally cannot type the solution, and it takes structured choices only — no free-text chat.
In 2026 the field is scrambling: the GUARD Act advanced in the Senate, Character.AI banned minors after lawsuits, and the FTC's COPPA amendments took effect. Our design already clears that bar — on-device, non-companion, no free-text, no data collection — because we built it that way from the start, not because a regulator made us.
The in-app mentor is our Teachable Cast: your kid is the teacher, a cast character is the eager novice. It's the same Socratic design across every app. See how the method works →
The beloved free game portals, done right. Kids love the classic browser-game sites — instant, no login, calm, nothing violent, and a wrong answer never ends the game. We kept every bit of that feel and added what those sites were never built for: real curriculum (every puzzle is grounded in a specific skill and engine-verified for a valid solution, not filler), on-device with zero ads, no accounts, and nothing tracked, and progress you can actually see — an on-device report for you, never a dashboard that harvests your kid. The same instant, no-pressure joy; actually teaching something.
Some of the most popular practice apps run on a score that punishes every mistake — great for a leaderboard, hard on a kid who's anxious, perfectionist, or has ADHD. We built the opposite: a place where a wrong answer costs nothing and mistakes are the point.
No score that drops when your kid gets one wrong, no penalty that erases progress, no red "you lost points" screen. A wrong answer is just the next thing to think about — the app answers with a gentle hint, never a punishment. Practice should feel like a place to think, not a test to survive.
Nothing ranks your kid against other kids, no streak guilt-trips them back, no coins or gems turn learning into a slot machine. The 2025 research is clear that these extrinsic hooks quietly crowd out the real motivation to learn — so we leave them out on purpose.
A shared Reading-Access layer — adjustable text spacing and size, an optional dyslexia font, read-aloud with word highlighting, and a distraction-free focus mode — is on every reading surface, not bolted onto a single app. Design that helps a neurodivergent kid helps every tired, distracted kid too.
When an app checks in on how your kid is feeling, that check-in lives only on the device — never logged, scored, or tracked over time. Our wellbeing apps help a kid notice a feeling in the moment; they never build a mood profile.
This isn't softness — it's the research. Extrinsic reward economies and mistake penalties measurably undermine the intrinsic motivation to learn, and they hit anxious and neurodivergent kids hardest. See the method → · How we compare to other apps →
Hi — I'm Nathan, the person who started Spark & Anvil. I want to write to you directly, parent to parent, about what we're trying to do here and why it might matter for your kid.
I started building these apps because I wanted, for my own kid, the kind of educational software I couldn't find on the App Store in 2025. Software that wasn't an ad farm. Software that didn't lock the good stuff behind a $14.99/month subscription. Software that wasn't shipping every tap of your kid's finger off to someone else's analytics dashboard. Software that didn't try to be everything to everyone — but instead picked one specific thing your kid could learn and built a careful, joyful path through it.
Today there are 448 of those apps, across math and reading and science and music and art and emotional regulation and chess and ciphers and a hundred other things. Every one of them is free, ad-free, with no in-app purchases. Every one of them runs entirely on your kid's device — no servers, no telemetry, no third-party SDKs. The AI mentor inside each app is Apple's on-device FoundationModels — your kid's questions never leave the iPad. We're a 501(c)(3) non-profit (pending), and we plan to keep it that way. Forever isn't a marketing word; it's a structural commitment baked into how the organization is built.
Three things shape how we design every app. I want to name them so you can decide whether they match what you want for your family.
One — the cast IS the curriculum. Every app has a small group of named characters who recur across the lessons. Sir Pinwell IS the chess pin. Direct-Proof Dora IS direct proof. Stride IS the linear function. Your kid isn't watching a mascot dance around a math worksheet — they're meeting a character whose recurring behavior literally is the pattern they're learning. We call this distributed-narrative methodology, and it's grounded in 40 years of research on how kids build mental models through story.
Two — these apps are designed for face-to-face play. A growing number of them have a "pass-the-device" mode. You and your kid sit on the couch, hand the iPad back and forth, take turns, laugh, argue, restart the round. The device collapses into a shared object instead of a wall between you. The research on family-cohesion play is clear: kids learn faster, and feel safer, when an adult is co-present in the play moment. Browse the apps that ship pass-and-play modes — and ask us about the ones that don't yet.
Three — we take heavy content seriously. Some of our apps touch topics that aren't easy: history's harder chapters, climate change, online safety, loss, identity. For those, we follow SAMHSA's Trauma-Informed Care framework: every difficult unit ships with a content warning, an always-visible "skip" affordance, an audio-only mode, and a gentle co-noticing register that names what's hard instead of pretending it isn't. Where the content needs an outside voice we don't have, we bring in external sensitivity reviewers. We never use scare tactics on a kid.
About screen time — I want to be honest with you. I don't think screen time is a moral failing. I think it's a fact of life in 2026, and I think the question that actually matters is what's on the screen and who's next to your kid when they're using it. Our apps are designed to be put down. They have natural stopping points. They don't use streak-mechanics or notification spam to drag your kid back. And when you can, sit next to your kid for ten minutes and play together. Co-play multiplies what your kid learns and changes what the screen means in your household.
We're a small organization. I'm the founder; we're recruiting a founding board through 2026; we're applying for foundation grants and building individual donations. We don't have a big team or a marketing budget. What we have is the portfolio, the methodology, and a refusal to compromise on the things that matter: no ads, no tracking, free forever, designed for your kid and your family — not for a metric.
If you want to support what we're doing, the most valuable thing you can do is play the apps with your kid and tell us what you think. The second most valuable is to become a monthly donor — even $5/month helps. The third is to share us with another family who'd care.
Thank you for reading. Thank you for caring about what your kid uses.
— Nathan Tran
Founder · Board Chair
nathan@sparkanvil.org
New books, new characters, seasonal collections, and short notes about what kids in our reading community are loving this month. One email per month. Unsubscribe anytime. Adult addresses only — we never collect emails from kids.
Every Spark & Anvil app maps to recognized educational standards. No ads, no in-app purchases, no tracking — appropriate for school deployment. Free forever for every kid, classroom, and school — no licensing, no contracts, no per-seat fees.
Looking for the working chapter-library portal? Jump to the educator portal below.
ELA, Math
Science
Music, dance, theater, visual arts
Social studies, civics
Digital literacy, computer science
Specific frameworks and codes for each subject area — the exact alignment you'd cite in a curriculum-adoption review. Every app carries per-standard mastery tracking in its device-local teacher dashboard.
| Cluster | Framework | Representative codes | Grades |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mathematics FractionForge (NF.3–5) · RatioRealm (6.RP, 7.RP) · FunctionForge (8.F) · GeometryForge (6–8.G) · ChanceForge (6–7.SP) | Common Core Math (CCSS.MATH) | 3.NF · 4–5.NBT/OA/MD · 6.RP · 6–8.NS/EE · 6–8.SP · 8.F · MP1–MP8 | 3–8 |
| English Language Arts ReadQuest (RL/RI.3–8) · GrammarForge (L.3–8.1) · QuillSpell (L.4–8.2/4) · SpeakForge (SL.6–8) | Common Core ELA (CCSS.ELA-LITERACY) | RL/RI.3–8 · W.4–8 · SL.6–8 · L.3–8 (Grammar/Vocabulary/Figurative) | 3–8 |
| Science ChemQuest (MS-PS1) · TraitForge (MS-LS3/4) · CosmosForge (MS-ESS1) · CircuitForge (MS-ETS1) | Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS · Performance Expectations) | MS-PS1–4 · MS-LS1–4 · MS-ESS1–3 · MS-ETS1 · SEP 1–8 · CCC (7) | 6–8 (some 3–5) |
| Engineering & Computer Science MakerForge (ETS1) · RoboForge (CSTA 2-AP) · CodeRealm (CSTA K-12) · DataForge (GAISE II) | NGSS Engineering Design + CSTA + ISTE | MS-ETS1-1…4 · CSTA 2-AP/2-DA · ISTE 1.4 (Innovative Designer) · 1.5 (Computational Thinker) | 5–8 |
| Social Studies CivicForge (D2.Civ) · MarketQuest (D2.Eco) · TerraVoyage (D2.Geo) · DigQuest (D2.His) | C3 Framework (College, Career & Civic Life) | D2.Civ.1–14 · D2.Eco.1–15 · D2.Geo.1–12 · D2.His.1–16 · D3 · D4 | 6–8 (some 3–5) |
| Arts PixelForge (VA) · BeatForge (MU) · DanceQuest (DA) · StageForge (TH) | National Core Arts Standards (NCAS) | VA / MU / DA / TH / MA × Creating (Cr1–3) · Performing (Pr4–6) · Responding (Re7–9) · Connecting (Cn10–11) | 4–8 |
| SEL, Health & Wellness MindForge (CASEL 5) · WellnessForge (NHES 1–8) · FocusForge (Self-Management) | CASEL 5 + SHAPE America / NHES | Self-Awareness · Self-Management · Social Awareness · Relationship Skills · Responsible Decision-Making · NHES 1–8 | 4–8 |
Student-facing screens use plain language ("Ratios & Proportional Relationships"); teacher reports carry the full code (e.g., CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.6.RP.A.1).
CuriosityQuest maps TEKS across 12 subjects; math/ELA/science crosswalks in progress.
Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking — strong content overlap with our CCSS mapping.
Standards of Learning — aligns closely with CCSS content under different numbering.
24 states use NRC-Framework-based science standards (~80–90% NGSS overlap).
Every district AI policy in 2026 is grappling with the same worries — student chatbots, data sent to model vendors, unbounded free-text conversation. Our apps sidestep all three by construction, so they pass an AI-policy review without exceptions:
Read the full safety architecture → — the line-by-line mapping against the GUARD Act, COPPA-2026, and the state companion-chatbot laws, written for regulators, journalists, and school leaders.
Each app includes a per-app teacher dashboard with progress reports mapped to its relevant curriculum standard. Reports are device-local and exportable by the student or via parent/guardian.
Volume licensing for schools: contact educators@sparkanvil.org.
We're building a curated teacher network for live, small-group classes — using the 448 apps your students already know and love. Teachers keep 100% of class fees. We take 0% — ever. (Stripe Connect ~3% direct, same as any payment processor.) Every class slot is pre-curated by us to match a specific app's curriculum and grade band — so you spend your time teaching, not building lesson plans.
We define each slot from an app's curriculum (e.g., "GambitTales: Sir Pinwell's Tactical Patterns, Grades 5-6"). You bid for the slots that match your expertise. Quality stays high; you spend less time marketing.
We take 0%. Stripe Connect Direct Charges send class fees straight to your bank. Platform funded by foundations + donor sustainers — not by skimming teacher earnings. No "Success Tax" eating a third of every dollar you earn.
Live cohort sync, teacher dashboard, AI co-pilot prompts, auto-generated weekly parent reports. All deeply integrated with the apps your students are using — not a Zoom screenshare bolt-on.
We handle parental consent flows, FTC 2026 amendments, content moderation, and all the regulatory plumbing. You focus on the teaching.
One email per month, sent the morning of the monthly educator call. Each issue carries:
Phase 1 uses a mailto fallback while the Substack newsletter is being provisioned. Once the Substack URL is wired, the form swap is one PR with no schema change.
2187 Standard (ages 9-12) and 1606 Advanced (ages 11-14) illustrated chapter books across 448 apps — mapped to recognized curriculum standards. Free forever; ad-free; no tracking. Designed for classroom use, parent co-reading, and library lists.
Each chapter character embodies one curricular primitive. The chip shows what to use that primitive for; the prompt suggests one classroom move you can try this week.
Classroom prompt: Pair a chapter character with a CCSS skill the kid is currently practicing — let the character's recurring behavior model the skill before the kid attempts it.
Browse CCSS-aligned chapters →Classroom prompt: Use chapter cast members as anchoring phenomena. Each character embodies one science primitive; ask kids to predict the character's next move before reading.
Browse NGSS-aligned chapters →Classroom prompt: Have students remix one chapter scene as a 3-minute classroom performance. The voice register card in each chapter is the actor's guide.
Browse NCAS-aligned chapters →Classroom prompt: Use a chapter's relationships section (alliance + tension table) as a starter conversation about social structures the kid recognizes in their own community.
Browse C3-aligned chapters →Classroom prompt: Pair a chapter with the matching app. Have students compare how the character behaves on the page vs. on the screen; this surfaces the curricular primitive twice.
Browse ISTE-aligned chapters →Standard filter chips on /story are Phase 1; per-chapter standards tagging arrives in Phase 2 (educator-suggestion-driven per community curation below).
One chapter + one cluster + one classroom move to try. Rotated monthly; the monthly educator email above carries the full feature with use-prompts and a parent-share PDF.
The PIN — a piece cannot move because doing so exposes a more valuable piece behind it
from GambitTales
Try in class: read the opening scene aloud, stop at the first moment Pinwell rearranges books by color (it's intentional vs the "correct" call-number system), and ask: "Whose rule is right? Is there a Pinwell in your library?" Then read on — the pin tactic is named through the same scene structure.
Read the chapter →Nine characters across flightforge / circuitforge / gambittales / proofquest / functionforge / fractionforge whose recurring move IS the curricular primitive — voltage, current, the chess pin, the linear function as walking, the birthday-pie fraction.
Try in class: assign each kid one character from the cluster as a "tracker." For the next two weeks, when their character's primitive shows up in any text, game, or worksheet, they raise a hand. By week 2 you'll see the cluster in every subject.
Browse the cluster →60 minutes. The founder + 2-3 invited educators. We open with the featured chapter, then share what's working in the classrooms in our early pilot. Bring one chapter you've used (or want to use); we'll workshop a classroom move together. Recordings posted to the next month's newsletter so attendance is genuinely optional.
Phase 1 logistics: free Zoom seat (10 verified educators per call); first 25 RSVPs get the Zoom link by reply email. Adult educators only — no kid attendance per COPPA + per our trauma-informed posture.
Phase 2 of the community program adds a one-way suggestion surface so vetted educators can propose chapter edits, standards tagging, classroom-use prompts, or cast-iteration ideas. Suggestions land in our inbox; the curation team reviews, attributes, and (where adopted) merges. No public commenting in Phase 1 — moderation cost + COPPA + the trauma-gated chapters' SAMHSA TIP 57 register all preclude an open discussion surface this round.
Until then: the monthly Zoom + email reply chain are the suggestion channel. Reply to any educator-drop issue or RSVP for a Zoom slot. Suggestions credited in the next issue's "From the educators" footer.
Every app runs entirely on the device. There are no ads, no in-app purchases, no accounts, and no third-party trackers — nothing a child does leaves their device. Read the full privacy policy and terms of use.
Make reading comfier. Saved on this device only — nothing leaves your device.
