Welcome, grown-ups. This Parent Corner explains how CodingMarble Kids works, what doctors say about screen time for young children, and how to turn a few minutes of play into real learning. It is full of play school activities at home that need nothing more than your kitchen, a few old toys and your voice. You know your child best, so take what helps and leave the rest.
How this site works
Each page has two parts. At the top is a game your child plays: tap a picture to hear its name in Hindi and English, then find it when Golu asks. Below it is a section "For grown-ups" with the word list, 🔊 buttons and a short guide like this one.
- Two languages. The अ+A button in the header chooses Hindi then English, English then Hindi, Hindi only or English only.
- No "wrong". A wrong tap says the name of what was tapped, then the right picture glows, then Golu (our glass marble, गोली) points to it.
- The Goli Jar. Every finished game adds a marble. Tap the jar and count together.
- Settings behind a grown-up check. Set your child's age (2-3, 3-4, 4-5 or 5-6), which changes how many choices and questions appear. You can also switch on calm motion, calm sound, captions, fewer choices and high contrast.
- Printing. The word list on each page prints cleanly from your browser, so it doubles as a play school activities chart for the wall. There is no PDF download; just print the page.
Screen time: what WHO and IAP advise
We built the site around medical guidance, not around keeping children on screens.
| Age | Indian Academy of Pediatrics (2022) | WHO (2019) | Movement and sleep |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 1 | No screens (video calls with family are the only exception) | No screen time | Floor play many times a day; 30 minutes of tummy time in total |
| 1-2 years | No screens of any type | No sedentary screen time for 1-year-olds | At least 180 minutes of active play; 11-14 hours of sleep |
| 2-5 years | At most 1 hour a day, supervised, sessions of 20-30 minutes at most | No more than 1 hour; less is better | At least 3 hours of play, 1 hour of it energetic; 10-14 hours of sleep |
| 5-6 years | Under 2 hours a day including educational use | - | At least 1 hour of energetic play; 9-12 hours of sleep |
IAP also advises no screens during meals, in the hour before sleep or during travel, and never using a phone to feed or calm a child. We suggest 5-10 minute sessions for 2-3 year olds, 10-15 minutes for 3-5 and 15-20 minutes for 5-6, always with an adult nearby, and every game ends with a real-world mission.
A 10-minute daily routine that works
- Minute 0-1: choose. Offer two cards: "Fruits or animals?" Letting your child choose builds interest.
- Minutes 1-3: listen together. Tap pictures, hear the names, say them back. Point and ask, "What is this?"
- Minutes 3-7: play the game. Sit beside your child. Praise effort: "You kept trying!" If they get stuck, wait for the hint instead of tapping for them.
- Minutes 7-10: screen down, real world. Do the mission from the end card: find three red things, count spoons, name what you see from the balcony.
Do the same thing at the same time each day, for example after the evening snack. Children love a ritual, and ten minutes daily beats an hour on Sunday.
How to support your child at each age
Under 2: talk, sing, play, no screen
Babies learn from faces, voices and real objects. Our learning for 1 year old guide gives you first words, rhymes and montessori activities for 1 year old babies, all offline.
Play school activities for 2 year olds
Name everything during the day: bath, dressing, cooking. Try posting (drop coins or bottle caps into a box with a slot), stacking steel katoris, pouring water between cups, and animal-sound games. Online, pick animal sounds, colours and the baby keyboard. Most 2 year olds are learning single words and starting two-word phrases.
Play school activities for 3 year olds
Three year olds love sorting and pretending. Sort dal and rajma (with you watching), match socks, play "shop" with fruit from the basket, and sing rhymes. Games for 3 year olds at home can be as simple as "I spy something yellow". Online, try a se anar, counting 1 to 10 and shapes. Read more in what should a 3 year old know.
Activities for 4 year olds at home
Four year olds can follow a two-step instruction, count past 10 and enjoy rules. Play snakes and ladders, draw with chalk on the floor, cut and stick pictures, and play "what comes next?" with coloured blocks. Online, try phonics sounds, patterns and opposites.
Five to six: ready for Class 1
Help your child blend sounds into words (c-a-t), add small numbers with real objects and talk about days, months and seasons. Let them help with shopping lists and the calendar.
What are Montessori activities? Easy ideas at home
Montessori activities are real, hands-on tasks a child can do with their own hands, with materials sized for them and a clear beginning and end: pouring, spooning, sorting, buttoning, wiping a table. The idea is independence and concentration, not toys. Good montessori activities for toddlers include transferring rajma from one bowl to another with a spoon, washing a steel plate, peeling a banana and watering a plant. Montessori activities for 3 year olds and montessori activities for 4 year olds add threading beads, sorting by colour, folding napkins and matching picture cards to real objects. You do not need special kits.
Montessori activity ideas by age
Here are simple examples of Montessori activities, using things most Indian homes already have. Show the task slowly once, then step back and let your child try.
| Age | Montessori activity ideas |
|---|---|
| Montessori activities for infants (under 12 months) | A basket of safe household objects to hold and mouth (a steel katori, a wooden spoon, a cloth ball), tummy time with a mirror |
| Montessori activities for 18 month old toddlers | Posting bottle caps into a tin, pulling scarves from a box, carrying their own cup to the kitchen |
| Montessori activities for 2 year olds | Pouring water between two small jugs, spooning chana, washing vegetables in a tub, putting shoes on the rack |
| Montessori activities for preschoolers (3-4) | Threading beads, sorting buttons by colour, folding napkins, peeling and cutting a banana with a butter knife |
| Montessori activities for kindergarten and 5 year olds | Sandpaper-style letters traced with a finger, counting beads into groups of ten, watering plants and keeping a leaf diary |
A play school activities list for preschoolers
If you want a simple list for the week, here are play activities examples that match what good play schools do. Each takes 10-15 minutes and needs no screen.
- Monday, songs and movement: play school activities songs such as मछली जल की रानी है and "Head, shoulders, knees and toes", with actions.
- Tuesday, art: finger painting with haldi water or crayons on old newspaper.
- Wednesday, stories: read one picture book, then ask "What happened next?"
- Thursday, sorting: sort the laundry by colour or the vegetables by shape.
- Friday, outdoor play: run, jump, throw a ball and play hide and seek.
Good games for 2 year olds at home are even simpler: peekaboo, rolling a ball back and forth, and "where is your nose?". For older children, educational games for 3 year olds at home include matching pairs of cards, and games for 4 year olds at home include simple board games with a dice, which teach counting and taking turns. These pre school activities for children work in any language; for pre school activities in English, just name things in English as you play.
How to teach Hindi, English and maths at home
How to teach Hindi to kids at home: speak it naturally at meals and bedtime, sing Hindi rhymes, and start with sounds (अ से अनार) before writing. Try the Hindi varnamala page together.
How to learn English for kids at home: read a picture book aloud daily, name objects in both languages and let your child answer in either. Bilingual children reach their first words at the same ages as others.
How can I teach my child math at home? Count stairs, roti and buttons. Ask "more or less?" at the fruit bowl. Set the table: one plate for each person. Real counting comes first; written numbers come later.
Good manners and safety rules for kids at home
Children learn manners by copying you: say "please", "thank you" and "sorry" to them too. For safety rules for kids at home, keep the list short and repeated: "hot" near the stove, "stop" at the road, no switches with wet hands, and three trusted adults they can go to. Our good manners for kids and safety rules for kids pages turn these into picture games.
When your child gets frustrated or says "no"
Name the feeling ("You are cross because it was hard"), take a break and come back later. Praise the effort, not being right. Never push a child who is tired or hungry. For a child with speech delay, autism or sensory needs, switch on calm sound and fewer choices, and repeat favourite pages as often as they like.
Privacy: what we keep and what we do not
There is no login, no child profile, no ads and no tracking, and the kids site sets no cookies. We never ask for your child's name. Marbles and settings are saved only on your device, and clearing your browser data removes them. Read the full privacy page.
A note on milestones
Our milestone pages use the CDC checklists, which list what about 75% of children do by a certain age. They are a guide for watching and playing, not a screening tool and not a diagnosis. Every child grows at their own pace. If your child has lost skills they once had, or you are worried, talk to your paediatrician.
