A dinosaur writes
what your child types

Type a message. She walks across the sand and stamps it out, one footprint letter at a time.

Open it in your browser Get the iPhone beta

Free. No account, no ads, nothing leaves the device.

What it actually does

It is a writing toy, not a lesson. Nothing is scored and nothing is corrected — the fun is that the alphabet really works, in both directions.

She writes as you type

Every letter is a footprint pressed into the sand, in step with the keyboard. Tap the sand anywhere and it behaves like a page: the writing rises from the bottom and older lines scroll away.

Sand or parchment

Write in a raked sandpit or on an unrolled scroll. The English letter sits faintly under each print while you are learning, and switches off when you are not.

Read it back

Tap footprints on the key and the word builds up in plain English — so a message somebody sends you can be worked out without asking a grown-up.

Send it as a puzzle

Share a message as a picture with the answer underneath, or as a printable sheet with a cut line and the full key — footprints on top, answer removed, decodable by anyone holding the page.

How it goes

Four screens, no menus to learn.

  1. TypeTap the sand and use the keyboard you already have. She starts walking.
  2. Keep itSave it as a note. Open it again later and carry on writing where you left off.
  3. Print itSend the sheet to a printer, or straight into the share sheet on a phone.
  4. Swap themHand the puzzle to someone else and let them work out what it says.

The alphabet

Thirty-six characters, built as a system rather than a lookup table: the direction a foot points, and whether prints are stacked or side by side, is what carries the letter. It is the same key the app prints on the back of every puzzle sheet.

A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

Try the beta on iPhone

Footprint Scribe is in TestFlight while the last edges come off. Install TestFlight from the App Store first, then open this link on the phone you want it on.

Join the TestFlight beta Or just use it in the browser

Builds are updated often. TestFlight will tell you when there is a new one.