Chapter 2 — Hide and Seek

Chapter 2 of the Class 4 Mathematics NCERT textbook (Maths Mela), "Hide and Seek", introduces young learners to spatial reasoning through the familiar game of hide-and-seek. Children explore top, front, and side views of objects, describe positions using rows and columns on a grid, follow directions on a school map, and play a coordinate-style treasure hunt. Download the PDF to read a full summary and Q&A for this chapter.

• Top, Front, and Side Views of Objects — The chapter opens with characters Mini, Bholu, Rani, and Jagat playing hide-and-seek, and uses this to show why the same object looks different from different positions. Students compare drawings of a single brick made from the top, front, and side and match each drawing to the correct view. They also practice identifying the view shown in pictures of everyday objects like chairs, pencils, and bottles.
• Grid Positions and Coordinates — In the 'Cat Finds Jagat' and 'Grid Game' sections, students locate objects using rows and columns. Jagat's position is described as 'third desk in the first row', and Rani gives Bholu clues to place objects — a ball at the bottom-left, a pencil at the top-left, an eraser at the top-right — in a 3x3 grid. This builds early coordinate-thinking skills without formal notation.
• Treasure Hunt on a Grid — The 'Treasure Hunt' game has players move steps left, right, up, or down on a 4x4 grid (no diagonal moves allowed) to locate a hidden object using clues. Mini takes 4 steps right from the starting point, then 2 steps left and 1 step up, practising counting directed movements and tracing paths on a grid — a hands-on introduction to navigation on a coordinate plane.
• Reading and Drawing a Sight Map — In 'Drone Around the School', students view a drone photograph of a school and then read a labelled sight map showing classrooms, the playground, library, IT room, MDM kitchen, medical room, and stage. Activities include tracing the shortest route between locations, following left/right turn directions to help a water-delivery man, and drawing a personal sight map from the school entrance to the classroom.

1. 01Chapter 2 'Hide and Seek' is from the Class 4 NCERT Maths Mela textbook (2026-27 reprint).
2. 02Students learn to identify top view, front view, and side view of the same 3D object.
3. 03Characters Mini, Bholu, Rani, Jagat, and Gyan appear throughout the chapter's activities.
4. 04A 3x3 grid game uses row-and-column clues to place and locate everyday objects.
5. 05The Treasure Hunt game on a 4x4 grid introduces directed movement (left, right, up, down — no diagonals).
6. 06A drone photograph of a school is used to introduce reading a sight map.
7. 07Students trace and compare multiple routes on a school map and identify the shortest path.
8. 08Project work asks students to draw their own sight map from school entrance to classroom.