Chesed — Children's Stories
Story app for ages 3–6 that turns family reading into acts of kindness
Parents read short illustrated stories with their kids; every story ends with "What did we learn?" discussion questions. Kids earn coins for reading and donate them to real charity projects — with badges, streaks and profiles for the whole household.
One cross-platform codebase ships to both app stores, and a separate TypeScript admin panel manages the story catalogue, the discussion questions and the charity projects. Everything lives in a managed database with per-family access rules; stories are cached on the device so reading works offline.
The loop is deliberate: a story of the day, read together, then "What did we learn?" questions to talk about, then "together in kindness" — marking who read along. Reading earns coins; parents can top the wallet up by card, and coins are donated to charity projects one tap at a time, so kids see generosity as something they do, not something that happens around them.
Households have parent and child profiles with an avatar picker; kids sign in by scanning a QR code, so no child ever needs a password. Badges, reading streaks and a family calendar keep the habit going, with gentle push reminders. The catalogue is built for four languages, including right-to-left.
What you get with a project like this
- One codebase for iPhone and Android
- A story catalogue you manage yourself from an admin panel — no app update to add a story
- Discussion questions after every story
- A coin wallet with card top-ups and one-tap donations to charity projects
- Badges, streaks and a family reading calendar
- Parent and child profiles — kids sign in with a QR code, no passwords
- Offline reading and push reminders
Every moving part, in plain language.
Follow the arrows from the person using it to where the data lives. Hover any box to see what it talks to.
Where the stories are read. Keeps a copy on the device so it works offline.
Covers and illustrations, cached on the device after the first read.
Stories, families, wallets, badges and streaks. Access rules keep each family's data private.
Turns a card payment into coins. Card numbers never touch the app's own database.
Where stories, questions and charity projects are written and published.
What it costs to keep this online.
Building is a one-time price. Running it is a separate, usually tiny, monthly amount — here is where every dollar goes.
| Part | Per month | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Database & sign-in Managed SQL database with access rules and daily backups. | $25 | Managed SQL database with access rules and daily backups. |
File storage Story covers and illustrations. | $2 | Story covers and illustrations. |
Payments No fixed fee — the processor takes a cut per charge. | 3% of top-ups | No fixed fee — the processor takes a cut per charge. |
App store accounts Apple's yearly fee plus Google's one-time fee, averaged per month. | $10 | Apple's yearly fee plus Google's one-time fee, averaged per month. |
Admin website hosting The story admin panel — scales to zero when idle. | $5 | The story admin panel — scales to zero when idle. |
| Total | ≈ $42 / month + 3% of top-ups | |
Full-size demo.
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