"Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn."— Benjamin Franklin
Who We Are
Kriyaa is an innovative educational solutions company committed to fostering experiential learning through play-based learning materials and STEAM-based educational solutions. Our products and programs are designed to promote hands-on engagement, critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving skills among learners. By integrating play-based and inquiry-driven approaches to learning, Kriyaa aims to transform traditional classrooms into child-centred, engaging, and stimulating learning spaces.
Our Legacy
Kriyaa is a proud initiative and a sister concern of SAAR Education Pvt. Ltd., a pioneering educational solutions and publishing house that has been at the forefront of reimagining learning in India. For over a decade, SAAR Education has designed research-driven curricula, textbooks, and teacher development programs aligned with the National Education Policy (NEP 2020) and the National Curriculum Framework (NCF 2022) — empowering schools to make learning conceptual, competency-based, and future-ready.
Building on this strong foundation, Kriyaa extends SAAR's mission from the page to practice — transforming ideas into experiences, and classrooms into living laboratories of exploration. Together, SAAR and Kriyaa bridge the gap between what children learn (the learning outcomes) and how they learn (pedagogy and strategies), nurturing confident, curious, and capable learners ready to thrive in a rapidly changing world.
Our Vision: From Remembering to Reflection
To lead a global transformation from rote-based learning to experiential, joyful, and meaningful education — empowering children to learn by doing and to find wonder in every discovery.
Our Mission: From Play to Purpose
At Kriyaa, we believe that play is not the opposite of learning — it is the pathway to it. We aim to equip every child between the ages of 3 and 10 with the skills, curiosity, and confidence to become lifelong learners. Through play-based learning materials, experiential kits, and STEAM-based solutions, we strive to transform schools into ecosystems of exploration — where every question sparks discovery, every mistake becomes a moment of insight, and every child finds joy in the act of learning.
Our Story: Reimagining How Children Learn
Kriyaa (from the Sanskrit kriyā — "action" or "deed") began with a simple but powerful idea: that learning happens best when children do, explore, and experience. Founded by educators, designers, and child-development experts passionate about bridging the gap between knowing and understanding, Kriyaa seeks to revolutionise how children should learn in their formative years.
We envision schools where curiosity replaces cramming, discovery replaces dictation, and teachers act as facilitators of exploration. Each Kriyaa learning kit, game, and classroom solution is crafted to make that vision a tangible reality — helping children build, experiment, question, and create as they learn.
Our Philosophy: Learning by Doing
Kriyaa's approach is grounded in the timeless principle that children learn best through direct experience. Our resources draw from play-based, inquiry-driven, and STEAM-aligned pedagogies that empower learners to think critically, solve problems creatively, and express their ideas confidently.
Through tactile exploration and meaningful play, children internalise concepts that otherwise remain abstract. A lesson in fractions becomes a pizza party; geometry emerges through patterns on rangolis; science unfolds through tinkering with everyday materials. Each experience is designed to deepen understanding — not just of concepts, but of how to think, collaborate, and learn independently.
Our Origin – Where This Idea Began
Every great idea begins with a pressing need. Kriyaa – Learning by Doing was born from two urgent needs that collided in early childhood:
- Firstly, classrooms that still reward memorising over thinking
- Secondly, a growing culture of passive screen exposure that crowds out the tactile, social experiences children need to build real skills
Kriyaa is an attempt to reinstate childhood as a time of marvel, movement, and meaning. Between the ages of 3 and 10, children's brains grow faster than at any other stage. It's the most vital window for cognitive, social, and emotional development. Yet in far too many classrooms, this innate sense of wonder is lost to rote memorisation and passive learning. The instinct to touch, test, and tinker — nature's own design for learning — is stifled under the weight of worksheets and screens.
The Lost Window of Wonder — Two Crises, One Urgent Problem
1. Traditional Pedagogy: When Classrooms Teach Recall, Not Reason
Children aged 3–10 form the cognitive, social and emotional scaffolding that supports later learning. However, in many schools, these formative years are dominated by drill, repetition, and exam-focused tasks — approaches that research and practitioners say hinder creativity, problem-solving, and critical thinking.
The National Curriculum Framework for the Foundational Stage (NCF-FS 2022) and NEP 2020 both call for a pivot toward experiential, play-based, and activity-centred learning because rote transmission fails to build deep conceptual understanding.
2. Screen Time: Passive Viewing Taking Over Active Doing
At the same time, escalating screen exposure among young children is reducing time for unstructured play, fine-motor practice and face-to-face social interaction — all critical builders of language, attention and executive function. Recent systematic reviews and empirical studies link heavier screen use with weaker attention control, language delays, and poorer self-regulation in early childhood; limiting passive digital exposure is associated with better cognitive and behavioural outcomes.
The Net Effect: When rote pedagogy reduces opportunities for inquiry and screens take the place of real-world doing, children miss two complementary inputs essential to developing creativity, flexible thinking, spatial reasoning and collaborative skills. This is the "Missed Window of Wonder."
The National Curriculum Framework (NCF 2022) also reminds us that early learning must be "experiential, integrated, and rooted in play." Without active engagement and hands-on exploration, children miss the opportunity to build the flexible thinking, creativity, and curiosity that form the foundation of lifelong learning.
Our Response — Turning Both Problems Into Opportunities
From Rote and Scroll to Maker and Meaning
Kriyaa is designed to address both crises at equal scale: we replace rote learning with inquiry-rich pedagogy and actively displace excessive passive screen time with hands-on, social, and creative experiences. Our model is simple, research-driven and practice-ready.
How We Tackle Traditional Pedagogy (the 'Rote' Problem):
- Experience-first design: Every kit and classroom activity follows a concrete → pictorial → abstract progression so children discover relationships instead of memorising rules (consistent with NCF/NEP pedagogical recommendations).
- Multiple intelligences & expression: Inspired by Reggio Emilia's "100 Languages" and Badheka's child-centred experiments, our resources allow children to approach ideas through art, play, storytelling and making — strengthening conceptual understanding across modalities.
- Teacher facilitation & PD: We train teachers to become learning designers who orchestrate exploratory tasks, prompt reasoning, and scaffold inquiry instead of delivering memorised input. This creates classrooms where children reason, collaborate and iterate.
How We Tackle Screen Time (the 'Scroll' Problem):
- Hand-Head-Heart Kits: Each Kriyaa kit offers tactile, social, and physically engaging tasks that are deliberately designed to be screen-free alternatives — building fine motor skills, sustained attention, social skills, emotional quotient, problem solving and reasoning.
- Structured Replacements: We provide day-by-day activity recipes (classroom & home) that teachers and parents can use to replace typical screen activities with maker sessions, outdoor probes, or collaborative challenges that produce real artefacts and learning products.
- Community & Parental Engagement: We run webinars and tip-sheets for parents (aligned with NEP/NCF guidance) to help families trade passive screen minutes for rich, guided hands-on experiences — the same experiences that build resilience, creativity and social skills.
Our Objectives
At Kriyaa – Learning by Doing, we design teaching–learning materials that bring classrooms to life. Rooted in experiential learning and global best practices, our solutions help teachers turn lessons into hands-on, minds-on experiences where children truly play to learn.
1. Stronger Conceptual Understanding
We build resources based on proven frameworks like the Concrete–Pictorial–Abstract (CPA) and ELPS (Experience–Language–Picture–Symbol) models, and Synthetic Phonics for literacy. Every kit bridges abstract concepts with real-life application — turning theory into understanding through touch, movement, and discovery.
2. Sharper Cognitive Agility
Our materials are designed to develop problem-solving, reasoning, and spatial thinking through play, not drills. Movement and multisensory engagement strengthen attention, language, and executive functions, while reducing the cognitive fatigue and inattention caused by excess screen time. Each activity allows for differentiation, so every learner progresses meaningfully at their own pace.
3. Creative Confidence & Collaboration
Kriyaa nurtures the courage to experiment, fail, and try again — fostering creative confidence and grit. Inspired by the Reggio Emilia philosophy and Gijubhai Badheka's child-centred approach, our designs invite expression through multiple "languages" — art, movement, construction, and play. Every Kriyaa resource turns the classroom into a learning laboratory, where children think, create, and collaborate freely.
🌍 In Essence
✓ Conceptual clarity through real-world exploration
✓ Cognitive flexibility through active engagement
✓ Creative confidence through collaboration and play
Because at Kriyaa, every child deserves to Play to Learn — and Learn for Life. 🌟
Our Inspiration
At Kriyaa – Learning by Doing, we draw inspiration from visionary educators, thinkers, and researchers who believed that learning should begin with experience. Across centuries and continents, these pioneers challenged the idea of rote learning and envisioned classrooms as living laboratories — places where children learn by exploring, making, moving, and connecting ideas to the real world.
Their philosophies, echoed in India's National Education Policy (NEP 2020) and National Curriculum Framework (NCF 2022), continue to guide Kriyaa's mission to help every child Play to Learn — and Learn for Life.
🌱 Global Pioneers of Experiential Learning
1. John Dewey – "Learning by Doing"
American philosopher and educational reformer
Dewey was among the first to argue that education must be based on experience, inquiry, and reflection. He believed students learn best when they engage with real-world problems.
2. Maria Montessori – The Hands Build the Mind
Founder, Montessori Method / Association Montessori Internationale (AMI)
Montessori demonstrated that self-directed, sensory-rich learning cultivates independence, focus, and intellectual growth.
3. Friedrich Fröbel – Father of Kindergarten
German educator
Fröbel coined the term Kindergarten and introduced the concept of learning through purposeful play using "gifts."
4. Loris Malaguzzi & the Reggio Emilia Approach
Founder of the Reggio Emilia approach
Centred on the idea of children expressing themselves through "hundred languages."
5. Gijubhai Badheka – Indian Pioneer
Champion of joyful, play-based learning in Indian education.
6. Jean Piaget – The Constructivist Mind
Swiss psychologist
Piaget's theories shaped modern child development and constructivist learning.
7. Lev Vygotsky – Learning in Relationship
Known for ZPD (Zone of Proximal Development) and scaffolding, emphasising social and guided learning.
8. Jerome Bruner – Discovery & Representation
Proposed the action → imagery → abstraction model, foundational to experiential learning.
9. David Weikart & HighScope Perry Preschool Project
Research showing benefits of active learning in early childhood.
🧩 Contemporary Pedagogical Models & Policy Drivers
10. CPA / ELPS Model
A globally adopted framework ensuring deep conceptual understanding through hands-on learning.
11. Synthetic Phonics & Multisensory Literacy
Evidence-backed phonics instruction that builds strong readers.
12. NEP 2020 & NCF-FS 2022
India's education frameworks promoting experiential, play-based learning.
13. UNESCO – Experiential Learning
UNESCO recognises inquiry-based, hands-on learning as key to 21st-century skills.
14. Modern Research: Screens vs Active Learning
Recent studies confirm benefits of active, multisensory engagement over passive screen use.
💫 In Essence
From Montessori's hands-on materials to Malaguzzi's "hundred languages," from Dewey's inquiry to NEP 2020's experiential vision — all point toward one truth:
Children learn best by doing.
Kriyaa continues that legacy by designing resources that help every child explore, connect, and create — turning learning into a joyful act of discovery.