A free sing-along bus for children 2 to 5
Everybody on. Off we go!
Tap people onto a painted bus, tap its parts to hear them sing, and ride to places around the world.
Free. Ages 2–5. No reading, no ads. No sign-in. iPhone, iPad, and Android apps are coming soon.
Tap people onto a painted bus, tap its parts to hear them sing, and ride to places around the world.
Free. Ages 2–5. No reading, no ads. No sign-in. iPhone, iPad, and Android apps are coming soon.
How it plays
Four things to do.
All by touch, and every touch answers at once with a move and a sound. A two-year-old slaps and taps; a four-year-old aims and plans. One screen serves both.
Put people in
Tap someone waiting and they walk to the door and hop up. Or drag them anywhere over the bus and they take the nearest free seat.
- At two
- Taps everyone on.
- At four
- Chooses who sits where: the dog by a window, a friend on the open top.
Tap a part
On the road, tap the wheels, the horn, the wipers, the door or the bus itself. The part does its thing at once, and its verse plays next.
- At two
- Honks the horn twenty times.
- At four
- Picks the next verse on purpose.
Drive
Tap the bus and off it goes, or pull it along like a wagon. The bus chooses the place, one of twenty around the world, remembering the last six and preferring places its riders like.
- At two
- Taps the bus, then taps it again.
- At four
- Puts the dog aboard first, because the bus will pick somewhere with water.
Hop off, or ride on
At a stop the bus kneels with a hiss and the door folds open. Tap someone in their window and they hop off and wander into the place; tap the bus to keep riding together. Two people who live there wait to join when there is room.
- At two
- Taps everyone off.
- At four
- Lets Grandma off where there is bread, because that is what she loves.
The day
One bus. Two places. One day.
From morning on Home Street to night back home, with two places in between that the bus chooses for its riders, from twenty around the world. Here is how a day can go: Tokyo, then Delhi. Tap a stop to go there; with sound on, Hope, the app’s voice, says its name.
Morning
Home Street
- Waiting
- Four of the neighbors, a different four each morning, from Grandma; Dad and the baby; Mom and the girl; Grandpa and the dog; and the Baker.
- Listen for
- Hope: “Good morning, bus.”
- On the way
- Tap the bus and off it goes. The bus chooses the place.
Afternoon
Tokyo
- Waiting
- Two people who live there.
- Listen for
- Hope: “Tokyo. Japan.”
- On the way
- Tap someone to let them off, or tap the bus to ride on. Then the bus chooses the next place.
Golden afternoon
Delhi
- Waiting
- Two people who live there: a grandpa with his granddaughter, a mom with her baby.
- Listen for
- Hope: “Delhi. India.”
- On the way
- After two places the bus heads home at dusk, and the streetlights come on.
Night
Home Street
- Waiting
- Everyone, going home: one tap on the bus and they walk home one after another, each window lighting as they go in.
- Listen for
- Hope: “Home again!”, then the hushed night verse, then “Goodnight, bus.”
- Then
- When everyone is home the headlights close by themselves. Tap the sleeping bus and a fresh morning begins.
The light moves one step at each new place, and night comes only after two places and the drive home, so bedtime never arrives by surprise.
The song
The toy answers now. The song answers next.
Our own words, sung by Hope on the traditional tune “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush”, with a verse for each part of the bus.
- Every touch gets a move and a sound at once, and the verse for what was touched plays next.
- A verse always plays to its end. Nothing cuts it off, so it never sounds like a skipping record.
- Everyone aboard moves to the beat, so a child standing up has someone to copy.
- The song plays only when your child does something. In a quiet moment Hope may give one short hint, like “Tap a friend to hop on.”; otherwise the street just has its own sounds.
Favorite places
Everyone has somewhere they love to go.
Grandma loves bread, the girl loves a swing, the dog loves water, and the Baker, Dad and the baby love home. Let someone off where they love to go and the place answers: the dog splashes in and shakes himself dry; Grandma pops into the bakery and the shop bell rings. No words, no reward, just the same small scene every time.
A two-year-old finds the scenes by accident, tapping people off. A four-year-old plans rides around them.
At a glance
- Ages
- 2 to 5
- Price
- Free, the whole ride included
- Where
- Browser. Nothing to install
- Languages
- English voice and song. No reading needed
- Offline
- Needs a connection in the browser; the places and sounds you have played are saved
- Account
- None. Settings and the last places chosen stay on this device
Parents ask.
- What does my child do?
- Tap someone waiting and they hop on. Tap the bus, or pull it like a wagon, and it drives to a place around the world; on the road, tap the wheels, the horn, the wipers or the door, and that part plays its verse next. At the stop, tap a passenger to let them off, or tap the bus to ride on. Every tap answers at once, and there is no wrong place to touch.
- Is it the song I know?
- The tune may be familiar. It has its own words. Our own words, sung by Hope on the traditional tune “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush”, with a verse for each part of the bus. Every line was written for this bus. None of the classic words are in it, only the sounds any bus makes.
- Where does the bus go?
- To twenty places around the world, from Paris and Tokyo to Lagos, Rio de Janeiro and Sydney, each painted as a street with a bus stop. The bus chooses, remembering the last six places and preferring ones its riders like; two people who live there wait at each stop, and Hope, the app’s voice, says each place’s name, like “Paris. France.” After two places the bus heads home.
- Is it loud?
- It is bouncy, never shrill. The horn is a soft, round toy horn, and the song plays only when your child does something. In a quiet moment Hope may give one short hint, like “Tap a friend to hop on.”; otherwise each street has only its own quiet sounds. The grown-up area can turn the sounds or the voice off.
- Does it end?
- Yes. After two places the bus heads home at dusk, and it is night on Home Street. One tap on the bus and the riders walk home one after another; when everyone is home, the bus closes its headlights like sleepy eyes: “Goodnight, bus.” The next tap wakes it to a fresh morning.
- Does it work offline?
- In the browser it needs a connection to open; the places and sounds your child has played are saved, so they come back quickly. You can add it to your home screen from the browser’s Share or menu button. The iPhone, iPad, and Android apps, coming soon, play fully offline.
- How is it made?
- The paintings are watercolor illustrations made with AI tools and chosen by hand: we make them with OpenAI image models. Hope’s voice, the band’s notes and the sound effects are made with ElevenLabs, and the words are our own. We check every picture and recording before it ships, and the credits in the grown-up area say how each was made.
- Anything to buy or sign into?
- No. No purchases, no ads, no accounts, and no tracking. The device remembers the grown-up switches and the last few places the bus visited; nothing leaves it.
The bus is waiting at the stop.
The first tap wakes it up.
Free, with nothing to buy. No sign-in. iPhone, iPad, and Android apps are coming soon.
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