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 opened all of them. This is what we found, in the order we would try them, with our own screenshot of each.
Every site below is free and needs no account. The two things to check before handing over the keyboard are whether it fills the screen and whether a toddler can get out by accident; we say which is which. The directory has the full feature table, and the safe websites guide explains what the checks mean.
1. TinyFingers
The one to open first. Every key, tap or click sets off colour and sound, it goes fullscreen, and the exit is hidden behind a two-second hold on the top-left corner. Five themes, including a calm night sky.
2. ToddlerSmash
Bright and simple, with two useful extras: a five-minute timer that gives you a natural end to the session, and a close button that has to be held down.
3. TypeChars
The calm one, for when the child starts looking for the letter rather than the burst. Each key floats up as the letter or number pressed, on one of six scenes. No ads, no accounts, and no analytics at all.
4. Smashing Board
Choose letters, numbers, animals, fruits or a second language, then every key becomes a big bouncing character with a sound. Exits only on Ctrl+K. Press F11 (Control+Command+F on a Mac) for fullscreen, because it does not do that itself.
5. My Baby Wonder: Baby Keyboard Smash
Four themes, spoken letters, musical notes and a real Parent button. The site around it runs display ads; we saw none inside the game, and we check weekly, but open it yourself first.
6. Tiny Hands Play: Kaboom Keys
An ad-free collection for six months to nine years; Kaboom Keys is the smash game and rains emojis with sounds. Escape exits instantly, so it is a sit-alongside site rather than a hand-over one.
7. BabySmash.app
Stars, shapes and the occasional animal on a night sky, with a single Fullscreen button. Open source, made by a parent, and honest that it has no lock of its own: use Guided Access or app pinning.
8. SmashKeys!
A bare page that reacts to typing. It works and it loads instantly, but there are no themes, no lock we could find and it does not switch to fullscreen for you. Fine in a pinch.
Not a website: Baby Smash! for Windows
The 2008 original is a free Windows program. It is on this list because it answers the question most parents are really asking: how do I make the laptop safe? Once it is running, there is no browser to escape into.
Also from us
Our koala is a tap-and-feed game rather than a pure keyboard toy: smash the floating pixel leaves and it eats them, and any key grabs the leaf nearest to it. It dozes off when the smashing stops. It runs here with no ads, no accounts and no tracking, and it is what we play on a lap while our own keyboard smash game is being ported in.
Sites we looked at and left off
- HappyClicks: a large collection of tap and click games with display ads on every page, meant for playing together with a grown-up. Our notes.
- Keyboard Confetti: not loading when we checked. Our notes.
- A handful of domains that come up in searches (toddlerkeyboard.com, smashkeys.com, babysmashgames.com) 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.