The NCERT Class 2 Mridang book is the official English reader for Class 2 — 13 chapters across 110 printed pages — and every chapter PDF is in the download table below.
What the PDF alone does not show is how uniformly the book is built. Every chapter runs the same scaffold of repeated activity labels — new words first, then Let us speak, then listen, write or draw. This page adds a measured chapter-by-chapter breakdown: page counts, activity blocks and word lists for all 13 chapters.
Download the NCERT Class 2 Mridang book — official chapter-wise PDFs
All 13 files in the table below are NCERT’s own PDFs, hosted on ncert.nic.in — the same files a school order would give you. These are the current official files, not copies hosted elsewhere.
The first chapter’s official PDF (Fun with Friends) is the NCERT file on ncert.nic.in — a quick way to see the book’s activity labels before you download the whole set.
| Ch. | Chapter | Pages | Official PDF |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fun with Friends | 7 | |
| 2 | Picture Reading | 10 | |
| 3 | It is Fun | 9 | |
| 4 | Seeing without Seeing | 10 | |
| 5 | Going places | 5 | |
| 6 | Between Home and School | 6 | |
| 7 | This is My Town | 6 | |
| 8 | Life Around Us | 7 | |
| 9 | My Name | 7 | |
| 10 | The Crow | 8 | |
| 11 | The Smart Monkey | 8 | |
| 12 | Little Drops of Water | 7 | |
| 13 | Let us read | 20 |
The CBSE Class 2 English book PDF at a glance
One clarification worth making: Mridang is an NCERT publication — the official reader for English in Class 2 — and “CBSE book” is simply how parents search for it.
- 13 chapters indexed, from Fun with Friends to Let us read
- 13 official PDFs verified on ncert.nic.in
- 110 printed pages across the book
- 7 activity blocks, one each in chapters 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 11 and 12
- 0 named sections — the book has no numbered topic headings, by design
- 0 end-of-chapter question sets; practice lives inside the activity labels
- Chapter study pages for individual chapters: not yet built
This shape is deliberate. Instead of numbered sections, Mridang prints the same activity labels in every chapter — Let us speak, Let us listen, Let us write — and its practice sits inside those labels rather than in a numbered exercise set at the end. That is why the useful measures here are page counts and activity counts, not sections and questions.
What each chapter of the Mridang book actually teaches
| Ch. | Chapter | Sections | Activities | Figures | Questions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fun with Friends | — | — | — | — |
| 2 | Picture Reading | — | 1 | — | — |
| 3 | It is Fun | — | — | — | — |
| 4 | Seeing without Seeing | — | 1 | — | — |
| 5 | Going places | — | — | — | — |
| 6 | Between Home and School | — | 1 | — | — |
| 7 | This is My Town | — | 1 | — | — |
| 8 | Life Around Us | — | — | — | — |
| 9 | My Name | — | 1 | — | — |
| 10 | The Crow | — | — | — | — |
| 11 | The Smart Monkey | — | 1 | — | — |
| 12 | Little Drops of Water | — | 1 | — | — |
| 13 | Let us read | — | — | — | — |
The columns in the table below follow the book’s own structure. Mridang does not use numbered topic headings — the formal sections found in many NCERT books. Instead, each chapter is organised around a consistent set of activity blocks: new words first, then speaking, listening, writing, and drawing.
An activity is one of these hands-on blocks, such as Let us do or Let us draw. Questions are worked directly into the activities under alphabetised labels, such as ‘A. Share with the class’ or ‘B. Answer the questions asked by the teacher’, which keeps the learning pattern steady from the first chapter to the last.
Practice in this book lives inside the activity labels, so the page counts and activity counts are the useful comparisons — no chapter ends in a question set to work through.
Chapter 1: Fun with Friends
The opening chapter eases a child into the school year with the My Bicycle rhyme, a share with the class speaking moment, and first listen-and-write tasks — it sets the book’s rhythm of speaking before writing for any child starting Class 2.
Chapter 2: Picture Reading
The picture-led story Out! Out! introduces the book’s first sight words and new words blocks, reads words under pictures, and closes with a hands-on Let us do activity — the right start for a child still leaning on pictures to read.
Chapter 3: It is Fun
The Welcome to My World poem, animal-action matching, picture reading, and the Song of I chant under Let us sing all play with the word I — for a child who learns best through rhythm and singing.
Chapter 4: Seeing without Seeing
A chapter on understanding the world beyond eyesight, built around sight words, new words, speaking and writing, with an eye exercise block — for a child ready to talk about the senses and caring for the eyes.
Chapter 5: Going places
At only 5 pages, the going places theme pairs a make a list task, drawing, and the chapter’s phonic spotlight, the vowel sound ‘u’ — the lightest chapter in the book and a short win for a hesitant reader.
Chapter 6: Between Home and School
The between home and school theme works through new words, speaking, drawing and writing, with one activity block, for a child practising the everyday vocabulary of home and school life.
Chapter 7: This is My Town
The town poem — the book’s own read the poem again task confirms it — comes with new words, speaking, writing, listening, a Let us do block and drawing, for a child learning to describe a familiar place.
Chapter 8: Life Around Us
The A Show of Clouds poem sits with sight words, a say aloud task, oral questions asked by the teacher, and picture time — the only chapter whose questions are spoken, so it suits a child practising oral comprehension.
Chapter 9: My Name
A chapter built around the child’s own name, with sight words, speaking, listening, a Let us do block and a closing project work task, for a child practising self-introduction.
Chapter 10: The Crow
The story of The Crow places sight words and new words before the text, then follows with speaking, writing, drawing and listening tasks — for a child ready for a longer story read over one sitting.
Chapter 11: The Smart Monkey
The fable of The Smart Monkey runs word blocks, speaking, drawing, listening and writing tasks, one activity, and a closing project work, for a child who enjoys animal stories and cause-and-effect talk.
Chapter 12: Little Drops of Water
The Little Drops of Water poem comes with new words, speaking, listening and drawing, one activity, and a closing project work on water, for a child learning to connect a poem to everyday care for water.
Chapter 13: Let us read
The 20-page reading chapter We are all Indians plus four festival readings — Phool Dei, Sharad Poornima, Aadi Perukku, Pang Lhabsol — carries a sentence-joining task using but and its own speak, listen and write blocks. That makes it the only anthology chapter in the book, and at nearly a fifth of the 110 pages, one to read over several sittings.
Chapter study pages for Mridang
Individual study pages will walk through each chapter’s text, word lists and activities in detail; the block below shows the current state of each one — Drafting means the page is named but not yet public, and Not yet built means it is still to come.
| Ch. | Chapter page |
|---|---|
| 1 | Fun with Friends |
| 2 | Picture Reading |
| 3 | It is Fun |
| 4 | Seeing without Seeing |
| 5 | Going places |
| 6 | Between Home and School |
| 7 | This is My Town |
| 8 | Life Around Us |
| 9 | My Name |
| 10 | The Crow |
| 11 | The Smart Monkey |
| 12 | Little Drops of Water |
| 13 | Let us read |
How to use the CBSE Class 2 English book with your child
The whole book is one repeated scaffold: new words, then sight words where present, then speak, then listen, then write or draw, then do or project. Once a child can run that skeleton in Chapter 1, every later chapter feels familiar — follow the same sequence in any chapter.
The table below maps the blocks the book reuses, what each asks, and how often each appears across the 13 chapters.
| Block | What it asks the child to do | Chapters out of 13 |
|---|---|---|
| New words | Meet the chapter’s new vocabulary before the main reading text | 10 |
| Sight words | Recognise whole words at a glance, before the reading text | 6 |
| Let us speak | Talk about the topic out loud before any writing | 13 |
| Let us listen | Listen and respond to a read-aloud | 9 |
| Let us write | Copy or compose a short piece of writing | 9 |
| Let us draw | Answer the text with a drawing | 6 |
| Let us do | Finish a hands-on activity | 3 |
| Project Work | Close the chapter with a take-home project | 3 |
The three Project Work chapters — 9, 11 and 12 — are the closest thing this book has to homework.
Three things worth noticing about those numbers:
- The common parent mistake is hunting for a question set to test a child after a chapter. There is none by design — practice is oral, and in Chapter 8 the questions are even asked aloud by the teacher. A child who talks through the Let us blocks has finished the chapter.
- The book’s only explicit sound work is the Song of I in Chapter 3 and the vowel sound ‘u’ spotlight in Chapter 5. Treat those two blocks as the phonics signal.
- Oral work always comes first. Let us speak appears in all 13 chapters, while written work appears in only 9 — and always after speaking and listening. Never skip the speaking step.
How to choose the next chapter in the Class 2 English book
- For a shaky reader, do not start at Chapter 1. The 5-page Chapter 5 (Going places) is the easiest entry in the book.
- Then take Chapter 2 (Picture Reading), where pictures carry the reading.
- Alternate the story chapters (10, 11) with poem- or drawing-heavy chapters (3, 7, 12) so no stretch is all dense text.
- Keep the 20-page Chapter 13 (Let us read) for several sessions, ideally near one of the festivals it names.
- Use the Project Work chapters — 9, 11 and 12 — as natural stopping points, because each ends with a take-home task.
Related NCERT resources on this site
The Class 2 hub gathers every NCERT textbook this site indexes for Class 2, and the NCERT books index covers all classes and subjects. As the statuses above show, the individual Mridang study pages are still being built.
Sources and data verification
Where the figures come from. The counts on this page come from a verified read of the NCERT Class 2 English (Mridang) textbook as published on ncert.nic.in, chapter PDFs bemr101-bemr113.
What this page covers, and what it does not. It covers chapter titles, page counts, activity labels and word blocks. It does not cover figure captions — this book’s diagrams print without captions in our captured copy, so no figure index appears on this page.
It does not cover any CBSE syllabus or assessment scheme; the NCERT books index shows the full scope of what this directory holds.
Academic session. This listing is maintained for the 2026-27 session.
Who settles what. NCERT settles the textbook, its editions and its PDFs; CBSE settles curriculum, syllabus and examinations. Textbook contents and the examinable syllabus are not always identical — check the current official syllabus. For Class 2, day-to-day assessment is set by the school within CBSE guidelines.
Reference: NCERT Class 2 English (Mridang) textbook, official edition on ncert.nic.in. Section titles and activity labels quoted from the textbook; page references are to the official PDF.
Frequently asked questions about the Mridang book
How many chapters are in the NCERT Class 2 Mridang book?
13, running across 110 printed pages. The book opens with Fun with Friends and closes with the 20-page Let us read chapter. The download table above lists all 13 with their official PDFs.
Is the Class 2 Mridang book PDF official and free?
Yes. Every PDF on this page is NCERT’s own file, hosted on ncert.nic.in, and NCERT school textbooks are free to download. The chapter-wise links in the download table are the official files.
Which chapter is the Class 2 English Chapter 1 PDF?
It is Fun with Friends, the opening chapter of the book, and its official NCERT PDF on ncert.nic.in is the first row of the download table. The chapter opens with the My Bicycle rhyme and the book’s first listen-and-write tasks.
Where are the answers to the Mridang exercises?
There are no end-of-chapter question sets, so no answer key exists to search for. Practice sits inside the activity labels — Let us speak, Let us listen, Let us write — and a child who talks and writes through those has finished the chapter.
Which chapter covers festivals and joining sentences with ‘but’?
Chapter 13, Let us read — the book’s only anthology chapter. It pairs We are all Indians with four festival readings (Phool Dei, Sharad Poornima, Aadi Perukku, Pang Lhabsol), and contains the book’s only sentence-joining task, joining with but.