For parents
A free piano for little hands, made for children of about 2 to 4. Every tap makes a sound and sets a friendly animal bouncing. There's nothing to win or lose: no timers, no scores and no reading.
How it works
- Eight big keys, one octave of C major, so any mix of taps sounds pleasant. Each key has its own animal.
- Three picture buttons change the sounds: the music note plays piano notes, the paw plays animal sounds (cow, pig, dog, sheep, frog, duck, cat and bird) and the silly face plays boings, bloops and whistles.
- The play button plays Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, then Mary Had a Little Lamb, then Old MacDonald, lighting up each key as it goes so your child can play along. Press it again to stop.
- Several fingers at once work, and sliding a finger along the keys plays each one. On a computer, almost every key on the keyboard plays a note, so keyboard smashing makes music.
- It works in portrait and landscape, on phones, tablets and computers. Nothing to install.
- If a swipe scrolls the piano away, a round piano button at the bottom of the screen brings it back with one tap.
Grown-up controls
Press and hold the Grown-ups button at the top for 3 seconds (a ring fills up) to open the settings: volume (it starts gentle), sound set, keys-only mode, full screen and sharing. Sharing asks for the hold once more. A second finger on the screen, or sliding off the button, cancels the hold. On a keyboard, press Tab to reach the button, then hold Enter. Every link on this page asks for the same 3-second hold, so a quick tap can't take your child somewhere else.
Pinch-zoom is switched off so little fingers can't zoom the page. To make this text bigger, use your browser's text size setting; on a computer, Cmd or Ctrl with + also works while these notes are on screen.
While the piano is showing, the page switches off the keyboard shortcuts that browsers let a page block, such as reload, back, the address bar, find, print, save, bookmarks and switching tabs by number. A web page can't block everything, though. Closing the tab or window (Cmd+W or Ctrl+W), opening a new one (Cmd or Ctrl with T or N), quitting the browser (Cmd+Q), Ctrl+Tab, switching apps (Cmd+Tab or Alt+Tab), Spotlight, the Windows key, the browser's own buttons and the swipe-back gesture still work. Tab still moves from one button to the next (holding it down moves a single step), so many presses in a row can reach the browser's toolbar. To keep the screen on the piano, use the steps below.
Keep the screen on the piano
iPhone and iPad: Guided Access
- Open Settings → Accessibility → Guided Access and turn it on. Tap Passcode Settings to set a passcode.
- Open this page in Safari, triple-click the side button (the Home button on models that have one) and tap Start.
- To finish, triple-click the same button, enter your passcode and tap End.
Android: app pinning
- Open Settings and search for pinning. Turn on App pinning (often under Security → Advanced; on Samsung, Security and privacy → More security settings → Pin app) and ask for your PIN before unpinning.
- Open this page in Chrome. Open the recent apps view (swipe up from the bottom and hold, or tap the square button), tap the Chrome icon at the top of its card, then tap Pin.
- To unpin, swipe up and hold (gesture navigation) or touch and hold Back and Overview (button navigation), then enter your PIN.
Computer
Full screen in the grown-up settings hides the tabs and address bar. In Chrome and Edge it also turns on keyboard lock, which lets the page catch more shortcuts (such as the ones that close or open tabs); you then leave full screen by pressing and holding Esc. In other browsers, press Esc to leave it.
Screen time
The American Academy of Pediatrics suggests that children aged 2 to 5 have limited screen time (about an hour a day of high-quality content) and that a grown-up shares it with them where possible. Here that could mean playing together, naming the animals or singing along to the tunes. HealthyChildren.org, the AAP's site for parents, has more, including a family media plan.
This is a toy to play with, not a lesson. We don't claim it teaches anything.
Privacy
Nothing your child does here is collected. There are no accounts, cookies, ads or analytics, and the page saves nothing on the device, not even the volume (it goes back to gentle on each visit). Every sound is made on the device as it plays, so once the page has loaded it makes no network requests at all. The site is hosted by Cloudflare, which handles the technical details of each page request, such as the IP address, to deliver the page. Read our privacy policy.
Sounds and tunes
Every sound is synthesized live by your browser's Web Audio engine. There are no recordings or voices. The animal sounds are playful cartoon versions, each tuned to its key. The tunes are traditional nursery melodies in the public domain.
Questions
Why is there no sound?
Tap a key once. Browsers only start sound after a tap, so the very first note plays as the finger lifts. Then check the device volume and the volume in the grown-up settings. On an iPhone, also check the silent switch: the page asks iOS to play sound even when it's on, but older versions of iOS ignore that request.
Is it really free?
Yes. No sign-up, nothing to install, no in-app purchases and no ads.
What age is it for?
It's made for about 2 to 4, with big keys and nothing to read. Older children are welcome too.