What’s the Story?
If your older kids love Webkinz, your preschoolers can get in the action now, too, with WEBKINZ JR. Once you set the difficulty settings for your child's ability level, this site is so easy to navigate that it takes very little if any parental assistance even for preschoolers as young as three. The same basic Webkinz world applies here. Each Webkinz animal -- a dog or monkey, for example -- gets its own little house, park, store, and classroom, and it's up to your child to take care of it. A deluxe site membership is listed as Coming Soon, where parents can get more detailed progress reports, new daily on-site features, and off-computer games, like printables, for a fee.
Is It Any Good?
No doubt, Webkinz Jr. promotes computer use at a very young age. But there are many educationally appropriate games for the pre-K and K set on this site. And the confidence they build by being able to navigate a safe, adorable, intuitive site on their own makes this site among the top picks for the youngest computer users. Kids older than six (or even the most computer savvy 5- and 6-year-old kids) may find this site too simplified.