ages 3-5
Sprouts
Big taps, voice for everything, no reading needed.
TaraLand · for grown-ups
What TaraLand is, and what it keeps.
TaraLand is a small world of games, stories, songs and things to make, for children about 3 to 12. It asks for no account, shows no ads, and keeps what a child does on the child’s own device. This page is for you. The children’s pages are at /kids.
01What is inside
Five places and a guide called Tara.
| Place | What it is | What it practises |
|---|---|---|
| Play | Little games with Golu. /kids/play | Memory, colours, shapes, early maths, spatial thinking. |
| Read | Stories with Bindi. /kids/read | Early literacy, sequencing, listening, kindness. |
| Watch | Songs and shows with Miko. /kids/watch | Listening, rhythm, calm pacing, new words. |
| Grow | Draw, make music, look closely. /kids/grow | Drawing, music, observation, and ideas to do away from the screen. |
| Make | Things to make and do. /kids-activities | Printable and offline activities to do with a grown-up. |
Tara is the guide. She says hello, explains each game out loud, cheers when something is finished and gets sleepy when it is time for a break. Every instruction is also written on screen, so nothing depends on sound.
02What it never does
The rules every TaraLand page follows.
- TaraLand does not: show ads, or anything for sale.
- TaraLand does not: ask a child (or you) for a name, an email address, a birthday, a photo or a place.
- TaraLand does not: have accounts, logins, chat, comments or sharing.
- TaraLand does not: run analytics, trackers, or any third-party script, font, embed or frame on a child's page.
- TaraLand does not: set a cookie.
- TaraLand does not: link a child to another website without a grown-up check first.
- TaraLand does not: use streaks, countdowns, “don’t lose your stickers” or “come back tomorrow”. A sticker, once earned, stays.
03What is stored
What stays on the device, and what is never collected.
| What | Where | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Age band (Sprouts, Explorers or Creators) | This browser, localStorage | To pick the right size and difficulty. |
| Settings: sound, Tara’s voice, vibration, calm mode, break reminder | This browser, localStorage | So they are the same next time. |
| Stickers earned and best stars for each activity | This browser, localStorage | The sticker book and the stars on each card. |
| The dates TaraLand was opened (the last 60) and minutes played today | This browser, localStorage | A gentle count for you to see, and the break reminder. Never shown to the child as a streak. |
| Which little hints and stories have been seen | This browser, localStorage | So a hint is not repeated and a read story gets its star. |
| Copies of TaraLand pages and pictures, where your browser allows it | This browser, cache storage | So TaraLand opens faster and, on some devices, without a connection. Public files only. |
None of this is sent to us. Nothing about a child is ever sent anywhere: apart from loading the pages themselves, the only thing TaraLand asks our server for is public content (stories, songs, pictures). There is no name, email, birthday, photo, location or recording in any of it, because TaraLand never asks.
Progress made on the old TaraLand pages (the keys taraland-band, taraland-muted, taraland-stickers and taraland-garden-visits) is carried over automatically the first time a child opens the new one, so nothing already earned is lost.
If a browser blocks site data (a private window, or strict settings), TaraLand still works for that visit and simply forgets afterwards.
04Age guidance
Three bands. The age only changes size and difficulty.
ages 6-8
Explorers
A few more choices, short words, first puzzles.
ages 9-12
Creators
Planning, patterns, making things, harder rounds.
A child answers “how old are you?” the first time, and that only picks a band. Nothing is hidden or locked by it: a seven-year-old can open a game for three-year-olds. You can change the band below or in the grown-ups’ corner at any time.
Our own view, not medical advice: the youngest children do best with short sessions and a grown-up close by. TaraLand suggests a break after 20 minutes of play by default (you can pick 10, 15 or 30 minutes, or off). There is no timer that ends a game, no score to lose and nothing that tells a child to come back.
What changes in each game
| Game | Ages 3-5 | Ages 6-8 | Ages 9-12 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Memory Match | 3 pairs, with a peek at the start | 6 pairs | 10 pairs |
| Colour Pop | 3 bubbles, 5 rounds | 4 bubbles, 8 rounds | 5 bubbles, 8 rounds, with colour mixing |
| Shape Sorter | 3 shapes, 2 boards | 4 shapes, 3 boards | 5 shapes that look alike, 3 boards |
| Who Says That? | 2 or 3 animals to pick from | 3 animals | 4 animals |
| Word Builder | 3-letter words, no extra letters | 4-5 letter words, 2 extra letters | 5-9 letter words, 3 extra letters |
| Number Bubbles | counting to 10, tiny sums | adding and taking away within 20 | within 100 and times tables |
| Jigsaw | 4 pieces | 9 pieces | 16 pieces |
| Rhythm Tap | short rhymes, 2 lines | 3 lines, simple beats | whole rhymes, trickier beats |
| Colouring Book | bigger pictures with fewer parts | any of the 4 pictures | any of the 4 pictures |
| Tara's Garden | 3 patches | 4 patches | 6 patches |
05This device
See what is saved here, change it, or erase it.
Progress lives in one browser on one device. To see it, change the age band or the break reminder, or erase everything, use the panel here. You can also clear it from the browser itself: in the browser’s settings, find site data for this website and clear it.
A different browser or phone has its own, separate record. TaraLand cannot move progress between devices, because it keeps no account to move it with.
Reading what this device remembers…
06Printing
Colouring pages and make-and-do steps.
The printable pages are at /kids-activities. Open a page, then choose Print (one page or all of them) or Save as PDF. The PDF is made inside your browser from a picture on this site, so nothing is uploaded, and there is no email address to give.
- Pages are set up for A4. In the print dialog, leave the scale at 100% (or “Fit to page” for letter paper).
- Plain black-and-white print is fine: the colouring pages are line drawings.
- Every sheet has a blank for the child to write a name by hand. That stays on paper.
07Honest limits
What does not work yet, or works differently on some devices.
- Tara’s voice is your device’s own. It uses the speech built into the phone or computer, so the voice and its quality differ from device to device. If a device has none, the words on screen still work.
- Lit-up words are an estimate. When Tara reads a story, the highlighted word follows her at a typical speaking pace and re-aligns at the end of each sentence. It can be a beat early or late.
- Vibration works only where the device allows it. Most Android phones do; iPhones ignore it.
- English only for now. There is no Hindi text or voice yet.
- Watch is built around songs and rhymes. Videos appear there only when we have made them, and they play from our own files: TaraLand never plays a video from another website. Nothing plays by itself and nothing plays next.
- Tested on a few browsers, not every phone. If something does not work on your device, we want to know.
A question, a correction, or something we got wrong?
Write to us about TaraLand and a person will read it. Please do not put a child's name or details in the message: we don't need them.