Night Zookeeper User Guide
Night Zookeeper is an online learning program created to transform children’s reading and writing skills.
Our program teaches:
This guide will walk you through everything you need to know about the program and how to get started. You’ll discover how children use the program, ways to structure their learning journey, and the tools available to help parents and teachers support and track their progress.
Quick jump
Your first week
Here are our top three tips for making the most of your first week with Night Zookeeper!
When your child logs in, they’ll be guided through their first Quest—our main curriculum journey. They’ll create their own character before adventuring through a fun mini-lesson about a topic, followed by interactive games that reinforce key reading and writing skills. After this, the rest of the program’s features will unlock.
Use your Dashboard to tailor the program to your child’s needs. You can adjust their difficulty level, choose a spell check mode, and customise other features to create the best learning experience for them.
As soon as your child submits their first piece of writing, one of our tutors will review it and provide personalised feedback. Head to the Writing section of your Dashboard to read their comments and leave your own words of encouragement.
Discover the program
Every adventure starts here
Choose a feature
The games in the Arcade area allow children to practice and strengthen their skills, build confidence, and retain what they’ve learned so far on their journey. Explore the curriculum and vocabulary covered at each age level in Night Zoo Builder.
Each game that is completed in this area will earn your child Orbs which will help them to expand their Night Zoo.
Skill taught: Spelling
Children must navigate their submarine to collect the correctly spelt words and avoid the misspelt words.
Skills taught: Reading Comprehension, Grammar & Punctuation
Rearrange the falling blocks of words into a correct sentence and create a bridge for the animal to run across.
Skills taught: Spelling, Vocabulary Building
Find the missing letters in the word before too many incorrect guesses ends the game.
Skill taught: Spelling
Quickly identify the correctly spelled word vs the misspelt word and travel across a crumbling volcano.
Skill taught: Vocabulary Building
Select the correct synonym from four choices and climb as high as possible as the timer counts down.
Skill taught: Typing
Type the words correctly as they fall towards the bottom of the screen at increasing pace. Builds faster typing speed.
Skill taught: Spelling
Fly with your animal across the Night Zoo collecting the correct letters to spell a variety of words.
Skill taught: Vocabulary Building
Correctly match the correct antonym or synonym as fast as possible in a card matching game with special cards.
Skills taught: Reading Comprehension, Grammar & Punctuation, Spelling
A live game that puts up to 4 players against each other to identify incorrect grammar, punctuation and spelling in a sentence.
Skills taught: Grammar & Punctuation, Spelling, Vocabulary Building
A live racing game for up to 4 players where children must select the correct answer from 4 choices to speed up their vehicle and win the race.
Skills taught: Grammar & Punctuation, Spelling, Vocabulary Building
A platform game where children control their animal, avoiding the Voids, collecting items, and answering multiple choice quiz questions to progress as far as they can.
Here, your child can revisit any games they’ve unlocked through their Quests journey. These short, engaging games are linked to the curriculum they’ve been learning, giving them a fun way to reinforce key skills, practice new concepts, and build their vocabulary. They can return to these games whenever they like for extra practice while keeping their learning fun and engaging. To play, they simply pick their game and drag it to the slot on the side of the console.
Skill taught: Spelling
Quickly identify the correctly spelled word vs the misspelt word and travel across a crumbling volcano.
Skill taught: Spelling
Spell words correctly to jump across vines and make it to the finish line the quickest.
Skills taught: Grammar & Punctuation, Spelling, Vocabulary Building
Jump up the tree by landing on the platforms with the correct answers and beat your opponents to the top.
Skill taught: Spelling
Surf across the sea collecting the correct parts of words to spell them correctly and race to the finish line.
Skills taught: Reading Comprehension, Grammar & Punctuation
Rearrange the falling blocks of words into a correct sentence and create a bridge for the animal to run across.
Skill taught: Spelling
Keep your animal floating through the air by bouncing and collecting the correct parts of a word to spell it correctly before your opponents do.
Skills taught: Grammar & Punctuation, Spelling, Vocabulary Building
Race by selecting the correct answer from 4 choices to speed up the vehicle and win the race.
Skills taught: Grammar & Punctuation, Spelling, Vocabulary Building
Jump up the mountain by landing on the platforms with the correct answers and beat your opponents to the top.
Skills taught: Grammar & Punctuation, Spelling, Vocabulary Building
Choose the correct answer and jump onto the matching marshmallow in a race to the finish line.
Creative Crew is where children can explore Night Zookeeper’s community features, discover new writing and animals, leave encouraging comments, take part in collaborative Projects, and see how they’re progressing in the League Tables.
For safety, all writing and comments are moderated by our tutor team. Children cannot directly message each other or use live chat. When they follow another user, they’ll only receive a notification when that user publishes a new piece of writing.
You can manage which community features your child can access from your Parent Dashboard.
A space where children can write whatever they like, whenever inspiration strikes. They can choose from a range of writing styles or select Free Write to let their imagination take over.
It’s a place where they can write independently, explore their ideas, and develop their creativity!
The Games area is where children can reinforce their learning through quick, skill-boosting games aligned with the curriculum. They can practice the spelling, vocabulary, grammar, and language concepts they’ve learned in Quests and other activities.
Designed to be fun, fast-paced, and engaging, these games give children extra opportunities to practice key skills, strengthen their understanding, and build confidence while keeping them motivated to learn.
This is a showcase of the best work and animals that have been created on Night Zookeeper. Your child can explore, read other children’s writing, and leave encouraging comments to celebrate their achievements.
The Night Zoo Builder is a choice-based learning journey where children can decide what they want to explore and create their own path through the program. As they learn and play, they’ll build a unique Night Zoo filled with animals they’ve created and collected.
The more educational activities they complete, the more they can power up, earn rewards, unlock new areas, and discover new ways to create and explore.
Night Zookeeper offers hundreds of activities designed to develop skills through creativity, rewards, and tutor-supported writing practice. These activities unlock for children aged 7+ and include recommendations, lessons, games, projects, and writing prompts. Each activity helps children strengthen their reading and writing skills while building confidence.
You can view the curriculum topics and vocabulary that your child will cover by age group here:
Your child will begin their Night Zoo adventure with a short tutorial that introduces them to the world of Night Zookeeper and shows them how to explore and build their Zoo.
Your child will be guided through creating their first unique animal using freehand drawing tools or stickers. They can give their animal an imaginative name before writing a short, guided report about it. The writing prompts are tailored to their learning level and encourage children to add detail, practice descriptive language, and express their creativity. As they progress, they’ll also have opportunities to discover and collect new animals to add to their Zoo.
As your child completes activities such as games, lessons, and writing prompts, they’ll earn Orbs that power up their flashlight. The more they learn and play, the more they can charge it! Once the flashlight is fully charged, it reveals new areas of the Night Zoo to explore, create, and discover.
In addition to the activities available from their menu, they will also receive creative curriculum challenges within their Night Zoo map. These are tailored to their learning journey, and cover key reading and writing skills, including reading, writing, spelling, vocabulary, grammar, and punctuation.
They include multiple-choice quizzes, matching and grouping activities, and short writing tasks. The challenges are designed to meet your child at their learning level and reinforce important skills in fun, manageable ways.
If your child doesn’t achieve a strong score on a challenge, it may be reassigned for further practice. This gives them another opportunity to strengthen the skill and work towards mastering the concept before moving on.
As your child progresses and earns Orbs, they can use them to collect new animals, personalise their profile, and send to friends. This reward system gives children a sense of achievement and motivates them to keep exploring and learning.
Writing is an important part of the Night Zoo experience. Many activities give children opportunities to practice their writing and develop their creativity. When children submit their writing, it is reviewed by our qualified team of tutors. Our tutors celebrate what your child has done well, offer two or three gentle suggestions for improvement, and ask thoughtful questions to encourage them to develop their ideas further. This personalised feedback helps children understand how they can improve while building their confidence, creativity, and love of writing.
Our interactive lesson series help children learn key concepts while developing their reading and writing skills. Each series focuses on a different topic, such as persuasive writing, storytelling, punctuation, or poetry. Lessons combine clear teaching points with interactive activities, and finish with a creative writing task where children can apply what they’ve learned. All completed writing is sent to our tutor team for personalised feedback, helping children recognise their strengths and understand how they can improve.
Build storytelling foundations by practicing descriptive language, character development, feelings, voice, and prepositions.
Learn how to understand and write informative animal reports while developing factual writing and descriptive vocabulary.
Build on animal report skills by exploring more unusual creatures and practicing research, organisation, and informative writing.
Develop vocabulary and word choice through fun activities inspired by Will and his adventures in the Night Zoo.
Explore different text types and writing purposes while learning how to adapt writing for different audiences and goals.
Strengthen spelling skills by learning about root words, word families, suffixes, homophones, and spelling patterns.
Learn how to create strong story endings, including cliffhangers, twists, thoughtful questions, and satisfying conclusions.
Develop storytelling skills by exploring characters, events, and techniques for creating engaging stories.
Build reading comprehension by exploring Night Zoo stories, characters, settings, and key details while practicing understanding and recall.
Improve punctuation skills, including sentence structure, quotation marks, and using punctuation accurately in paragraphs.
Learn how to express and support opinions using clear reasons, persuasive language, and convincing arguments.
Learn how to write clear explanation texts by organising information and explaining how and why things happen.
Develop persuasive writing skills by forming opinions, supporting ideas, and using language to influence the reader.
Explore poetry techniques, word choice, rhythm, and creative expression while writing original poems.
Develop storytelling and creative writing skills through an exciting Night Zoo adventure, with opportunities to practice plot, characters, and descriptive writing.
Learn how to build tension and suspense using sensory details, clues, pacing, and techniques that keep readers guessing.
Learn to write clear, detailed instructions using sequencing, precise language, and an organised structure.
Develop character description skills by choosing precise vocabulary to describe appearance, personality, feelings, and behaviour.
Learn how to write effective dialogue and use conversations to reveal character, develop stories, and make writing more engaging.
Explore similes, metaphors, and personification to make writing more vivid, imaginative, and expressive.
This is your child’s personal space to showcase their favourite animals, writing, and awards. They can also see their current level and Orb balance. Orbs can be used to customise their profile, and they can change their avatar at any time using the Edit button.
The Work section brings all of your child’s creations together. They can view their writing, including drafts, as well as drawings, comments, lessons, and projects.
Celebrate your child’s Night Zookeeper milestones together! Here, they can track their progress, including words written, animals created, Star Writing entries, and comments received.
The Messages section is where your child receives important notifications, including comments on their work, Star Writing winner announcements, and reminders about monthly awards. They will also receive message notifications from the main activities page.
In the Friends section, your child can see their followers and the accounts they follow. When they follow another Night Zookeeper user, they’ll receive a notification when that user publishes a new piece of writing.
For safety, all writing and comments are moderated by our tutor team, and children cannot directly message each other or use real-time chat. You can turn off the Friends feature from your Dashboard if you prefer.
Is your child passionate about a particular topic? The Projects area gives them a space to explore their interests by sharing writing and drawings with the Night Zookeeper community.
Your child can join existing Projects or create their own around a topic they’re excited about. Each Project has an overarching theme with different subtopics to help inspire ideas and encourage children to explore their interests in more detail.
The Night Zookeeper team also creates monthly seasonal Projects, designed to encourage creativity, participation, and collaboration with other young writers in the community.
Quests is a linear learning adventure that guides your child through a full reading and writing curriculum, tailored to their skill level.
Each Quest explores a new learning topic. Along the way, children explore teaching points, answer questions, play mini-games, and complete creative writing prompts designed to strengthen skills in reading, writing, spelling, grammar, and vocabulary.
The first time your child logs in, they’ll be guided through their first Quest before the rest of the program unlocks.
On iPhone, Quests is the default learning journey, while on tablets and browsers they can be accessed from the main menu.
At the beginning of a Quest, children create an imaginative animal called a Wild and write a guided descriptive report. Questions are tailored to their age and difficulty level. Children are encouraged to add more detail to their writing, helping them build strong writing foundations. Spelling tips also appear when they save their work (this can be adjusted from your Dashboard).
Each Quest begins with an explanation of the topic being covered. Children then practice each concept through interactive questions, helping them understand and apply different rules and techniques.
As children learn, they unlock mini-games that reinforce the concepts being taught. Interactive writing challenges also encourage them to apply what they’ve learned while developing their skills and creativity.
Every correct answer charges your child’s Power Orb. The more they learn, the more they power it up, unlocking exciting rewards including den decorations, food, Sparks, and more! Completing Quests unlocks even more to explore, including new games, creative writing prompts, animal rescue missions, and exciting monster battles.
The Den area is where the animals your child has created live. Children can use the rewards they’ve earned to decorate their Dens and feed their Wilds, which will level them up. Once they reach level 30, they will unlock a brand new Den to decorate and fill with their new animals.
Unlocked games reinforce key reading and writing skills, and the vocabulary your child has covered through playful practice. Each new game they unlock will also be available in NZK Beam within the Games section. They can replay them at any time to practice the topics they have learned.
The Zook records created characters, rescued animals, defeated monsters, dens, and earned items so your child can keep track of their adventure so far!
The Reading Light encourages children to build a regular reading habit by making it fun to track their progress and rewarding them for the time they spend reading.
Your child can add a book to their bookshelf with the title, author, and book type.
They can log how long they’ve read and add a short summary of what they’ve read. Summaries are reviewed by our tutor team.
They can view all their books in one place and keep track of their reading progress.
Each time they record reading time, they power up the Torch. Once it’s full, they can level up and earn Orbs, helping motivate them to keep reading.
Put your child’s spelling and vocabulary skills to the test in the Spelling Grand Prix as they race through a series of fun, skill-boosting games!
Each race features four games designed to help children practice spelling words correctly, recognise word patterns, and build their vocabulary. Repeated practice helps reinforce new words, improve spelling accuracy, and develop confidence in using language.
The vocabulary covered is curriculum-aligned and matched to your child’s learning level, so you can see which words they’ll practice from the main screen.
Star Writing is a weekly writing contest where children respond to a fun, themed writing prompt for the chance to win real prizes!
When they enter, they’ll start with a short mini-lesson linked to the week’s theme. This helps them explore the topic, develop ideas, and plan their writing before creating their entry. They can then write their piece and add a drawing to bring their ideas to life.
Children can explore entries from other young writers and leave encouraging comments on their favourites. All comments are moderated by our tutor team to help keep Night Zookeeper a safe and positive community.
They can also browse previous Star Writing competitions, including the winning entries from each week. Winners are announced on the Star Map and through Messages.
To complement each week’s contest, we provide printable activities that you can download from your Parent Dashboard. They follow the same themes and prompts as the online competition, giving children another opportunity to practice their creativity and writing skills offline.
Using the printables alongside Star Writing is a great way to build a regular writing routine both online and offline, while keeping children motivated and excited to write.
Here, your child can discover writing and drawings from other children in the Night Zookeeper community. It’s a great place to explore different ideas and styles, discover new users to follow, and celebrate each other’s work by leaving encouraging comments.
When your child follows another user, they’ll receive a notification when that user publishes a new piece of writing.
For safety, there is no live chat feature, and all writing and comments are moderated by our team of tutors to help keep the community safe and positive.
Here, your child can find the interactive writing prompts they’ve unlocked through Quests. As they progress, they’ll unlock more prompts as rewards, which they can return to and complete whenever they like.
To get started, they simply drag a prompt into the firepit to begin the creative writing activity. These prompts are a fun way to spark ideas and make writing feel exciting and engaging.
Here, your child can explore a library of interactive creative writing activities covering a wide range of writing styles, including instruction writing, poetry, fiction, letter writing, and more.
Each one takes children through an engaging, conversational journey, with inspiring questions and prompts that encourage them to develop their ideas, add detail, and explore their creativity.
Our monthly League Tables show how Night Zookeepers are progressing based on their activity across the program.
Your child can climb the rankings by writing, playing games, progressing through curriculum challenges, and completing lessons. It’s a fun way to encourage them to stay active, practice their skills, and keep learning.
When your child joins Night Zookeeper, they’ll also be automatically assigned to a team. They can view their team’s progress and see how they’re contributing to the overall team ranking.
Writing Stars is where children can find inspiration to write, create, and develop their skills. Here, they can take part in our weekly Star Writing contest, explore interactive creative writing prompts, and track their reading progress through Reading Light.
These activities are designed to encourage creativity, strengthen foundational writing skills, and build confidence as writers.
For safety, all submitted writing is reviewed and moderated by our tutor team before being shared within the Night Zookeeper community. Our tutors also provide encouraging feedback to celebrate children’s achievements, motivate them, and help them improve.
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Visit our Support section to find answers to our most frequently asked questions or get in touch with our team if you can’t find what you’re looking for.
