Parents' Guide to Sprout Online

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Common Sense Media Review

Dana Anderson By Dana Anderson , based on child development research. How do we rate?

age 4+

Videos, activities for preschool fans of TV channel's shows.

Parents Need to Know

Why Age 4+?

Any Positive Content?

Parent and Kid Reviews

age 4+

Based on 32 parent reviews

Parents say the website is highly beneficial for children, providing enjoyable educational content that engages kids and reinforces learning through fun programming. Many parents appreciate its ability to keep their children entertained while also serving as a reliable resource for developing young minds.

  • learning opportunities
  • engaging content
  • educational entertainment
  • child-friendly programs
Summarized with AI

age 6+

Based on 25 kid reviews

What's It About?

Sprout Online cleanly separates experiences for parents and kids. The kids', or "Sproutlets" section is straightforward; kids click "games" to play games, or "videos" to watch videos. They can also scroll through portraits of characters to select activities by show. A third option, "Send to Sprout" lets registered users submit photos and videos of birthday cards or kids making recipes or crafts, which might be displayed online or on TV. "Send to Sprout" games allow kids to personalize their play by inserting personal photos into an activity.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say ( 32 ):
Kids say ( 25 ):

SPROUT ONLINE's content is entertaining and fairly well done for the preschool set. As the companion website to the 24-hour cable channel PBS Kids Sprout (dedicated to preschool kids ages 2-5), young kids will find many of their favorite Sprout characters on this site. But the real stars are the crew from the Good Night Show, as well as old standards like Barney, Bob the Builder, and Thomas the Train. Most of the site's video content is recycled directly from the channel's popular shows. The games section offers simple, age-appropriate activities from almost all of Sprout's shows. Some of the games link off to other sites (often to PBSKids.org), and most require a bit of reading to get started.

Online interaction: Sprout "Mail" allows you to send and receive messages from people that you put on your family's contact list.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about setting computer time limits so kids, especially in the preschool years, don't spend too much time online.

  • Families can talk about Internet safety so even the youngest kids start becoming aware of good online behavior.

Website Details

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by

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