The search "websites for babies to play on keyboard" gets asked a few thousand times a month, and the answers are mostly lists that nobody has opened. We open everything we list, play it, screenshot it and try to get out of it again. This is the list, in the order we would try it.
Two honest notes before the list. Most of it is ours, because the games we make are the ones we can promise are free of ads, accounts and tracking; where someone else's game is on the list, we say who made it and link straight to them. And nothing here has a parent lock: a web page cannot stop Escape. On a laptop that means playing together; on a tablet it means Guided Access or app pinning, which locks harder than any website could. The safe websites guide explains the checks, and the directory has the full feature table.
1. Tiny Hands Play: Kaboom Keys
The one on this list we did not make. Kaboom Keys rains emojis with a sound on every key, and an ABC switch turns them into letters. It sits inside a free, ad-free collection that runs from six months to nine years, so it is the bookmark that stays useful longest. Escape exits instantly, so sit alongside.
2. Shiny Smash
Every key press scoops a shiny gem into a glass, and when the glass is full the next press tips the whole lot out with a clatter. Fullscreen on the first press, keys, taps and clicks, nothing to aim at. This is the one we would open first for a one-year-old.
3. Acorn Arcade
Press anything and a little computer hops across a meadow to catch an acorn. Same fullscreen, same sound on every press, with combos and celebrations that a four-year-old will notice and a baby will not need.
4. Jelly Koala
Every letter, number and arrow key sends a jelly pod flying into a wobbly koala's mouth. No timers, no way to lose. It needs a browser with WebGPU, which current Chrome, Edge and Safari have; a blank screen means that is what is missing.
5. Jelly Alphabet
The letters one, from about two. Press a letter, its wobbly 3D jelly bursts, a recorded voice says the letter and a word for it, and an A to Z panel fills in as letters are found. Only letter keys do anything, which keeps stray presses harmless.
6. Running Koala
For when smashing turns into an interest in going somewhere: every press pushes a koala further through a moonlit forest, jumping and spinning as it goes.
7. Pocketpal
Half smash toy, half pocket pet. Any key brings a new 3D pal and a cheer, with the pressed key inside the burst; the feeding and cuddling buttons are for the older sibling.
8. Koala Leaf Smash
Our first game, and still the calm one. Tap the floating pixel leaves to feed the koala, or press any key to do the same, and it nods off when you stop. It does not fill the screen by itself, so press F11 (Control+Command+F on a Mac).
9. The Hungry Smoothie
A story book about a very hungry blender, with a recorded narration. Wave, move or thump the keyboard to turn the page. The one for wind-down time rather than for smashing.
Not smash toys, but in the directory
Jelly Baby is steered round a table with the arrow keys or a finger; Octo Jelly is a jelly octopus to poke, stretch and nudge. Both are by other people, both are better at three or four than at one, and neither answers a flat-handed slap the way a smash game does.
Sites we looked at and left off
- Keyboard Confetti: not loading when we checked. Our notes.
- TotType: toddler typing games, but only 8 of the 23 were free when we looked, and the pages load Google's ad code.
- Collections of tap-and-click games with display ads around them. Several are long-running and perfectly pleasant to play alongside a grown-up, which is not the same as somewhere to hand over the keyboard.
- A handful of domains that come up in searches, toddlerkeyboard.com among them, are empty, for sale or unregistered.
Before the first key
Volume down, other windows closed, the browser's fullscreen key pressed, and on a tablet the device lock turned on. The lockdown guide walks through each device in two minutes.