Best Toddler and Pre-School Website Reviews

Children Learn Playing Games

Help prepare your children for the high-tech world while they are young, like I tried with my baby granddaughters. Get them watching you, and then playing on the great new "kid-friendly" online gamesites made just for toddlers. See my grandbabies "computer skills games" story below.

Formula for Smart Kids: Play Games Together!"

Before your children turn two, they will love to sit on your lap and watch you click and play the simple games at SesameStreetWorkshop.org/sesamestreet/ website. They know the Sesame Street characters by then and probably adore Elmo. They will enjoy watching "The Count" count while the gamesite loads up. NOW there are more new games at SesameStreet Workshop Games to keep the older pre-schoolers busy for hours. NEW GAMES too - you should see them - they are Great fun!

Turn on your speakers and move the mouse over everything there while your little one watches you. The other links on the website are mostly for parents so explore them while your kids are napping.

Soon your kids will begin pointing to the places (links) on the screen they want you to click. (I had to clean fingerprints off my screen daily.) Mine quickly learned their favorite games (Grover and Elmo). They also like to color the coloring pages you can print there behind the Big Bird link. Fortunately Sesame Street's website does NOT display annoying ads which will quickly distract your little ones.

This is also true of PBSkids.org which should be the next website you explore with them. There you can find everything from "Arthur" to "Teletubbies" from the PBS shows they probably watch on TV. They have a new home page and LOTS more fun games too! PBS is putting more fun for toddlers online now with their PBS Kids Sprout website. I was happy to find this link too. The games here are still for the wee ones. After your kids use the mouse themselves, these are too boring for them.

Stick with these websites until your kids seem bored with everything that is available there. Mine were 3 and 4 before they were ready for more. That's like two years of Fun!

By age 3 they may be bored by these simple games, and ready for more action. Though SesameStreetWorkshop.org and PBSkids.com HAVE added more challenging games lately. My grandkids liked the harder games here for a couple more years.

When they start watching NickJr cartoons, like "Dora" and "Blue's Clues", your youngsters will like the NickJr.com website. They do have some noisy and distracting ads though. At first my girls wanted to click those ads and see where they would go. Since they are usually for something to purchase rather than a game, the kids quickly discover they are no fun. The matching games, dress up, on-line puzzles, coloring tools, and the video clips of their favorite shows will entertain them for hours. Click the NickJr Play button to get into the games section for them, or they will be "lost" in the "busy" window of options.

NickJr.com was the website where my right-handed 3-year-old wanted to take over the mouse herself. She learned to play on the computer all by herself because the buttons are so clearly marked with arrows and pictures and it is intuitive for them.

I was mildly surprised that her left-handed 4-year-old sister had no desire to drive the mouse herself. Some kids, especially the left-handed ones, may have more trouble assuming control of the mouse. Let them point to the screen until they are ready. They will try it soon enough.

Another great website for small children is NOGGIN.COM. We were pleasantly surprised that it has new easy to play games the girls enjoy with their favorite NOGGIN characters. They are "like pre-school on TV - and online". Eventually Noggin.com became too boring for my click-happy 4 and 5 year-olds. Perhaps they will add more games over time and become a TOP Gamesite for the toddler set.

Disney.com was a busy and distracting website that frustrated my little ones at first. Disney overused moving ads and popups and had most of the fun stuff for kids hidden behind a subscription that a parent had to pay for and setup. I was happy to find recently that the "JoJo" section, and now other sections have more free games they enjoy.

After recently "googling" for more young childrens websites, I found a lot of garbage ad sites that you won't want to explore with your kids. Even "child games" websites were still full of ads and other distractions that will bore most youngsters quickly. I continue to see changes online however, so just check out the websites yourself while those kiddos are napping.

By the time your kids are 5 or 6, they may try to find other websites they enjoy. Be sure you "know where your kids play" on the Internet too. My older grandchildren were restricted to playing the PC games that their mom bought them on CD's. There are many good ones, like the "Land Before Time" series, spelling games, and other learning games. Look through the e-Toys selections, or in a department store. There is a fun SHREK game that uses arrow keys and spacebars, but when the PC isn't online, the kids can enjoy this game.

DIALUP Connection WARNING: If you are on a Dial-up connection to the Internet, you may have trouble using the young childrens gamesites I listed. They will work okay with DSL, but are best with cable. I found there are some distracting busy ads on some sites too. If you don't have cable, you might want to stick with SesameStreetWorkshop.org/sesamestreet/ or PBSkids.org to avoid problems.

"Kids' Games TEACH Valuable SKILLS"

I consider myself the luckiest person in the world to have had such a big role in raising my daughter's little girls while she was busy with her career. They still come for sleepovers often, but they used to be here for ten or more hours every weekday. They are 13 months apart and I was glad Grandpa was here to help me most days. Thanks to these KIDS WEBSITES we easily provided them with hours and hours of SAFE learning fun!

Kids Have FUN and Learn Too!

We kept Video tapes and DVD's made for entertaining and educating children around. Even as babies, they were mesmerized by Baby Einstein, Sesame Street and Kids Songs videos. They learned the Baby Einstein flash cards as soon as they could talk!

Kids are SO SMART! They watch us do something and they just try it themselves. Before they turn two, they are clicking buttons on the remotes and changing their own DVD's.

I spent several hours a week with one-year olds on my lap while I showed them their digital photos and movies and our family websites and pictures of all their cousins. Soon we clicked over to www.SesameStreetWorkshop.org and they watched as Grandpa and I clicked and played games with their favorite characters, like Elmo and Big Bird.

Later we all graduated to PBS Kids which offers Arthur, and Max and Ruby and the Teletubbies and all their favorite PBS TV characters. Eventually we graduated to NickJr online. While it has annoying ads, the games and videos are easy and fun. We bookmarked the on-line games section right away.

I was happily surprised when my 3-year-old granddaughter grabbed the mouse and started clicking herself around herself playing her on-line games. Now I just have to set her up and make sure the speakers are turned on, or she yells "Turn ON, Grama, Turn ON"!

Updates: She can turn on the speakers herself now too. And her left-handed sister finally figured out how to use her right hand to "mouse". For several hours a day now both girls want to play "computer". Now they play individually, occupying two PC's.

Both girls have another favorite game. It is our own PUZZLE EXPRESS, the tetris-style train puzzle game. We definately needed the full download version so they get the MOST out of the game and all the train sounds and scenery too. I recently loaded our online PC game HOLIDAY EXPRESS for them too. Kids enjoy "presents" any time of year!

I believe we should help our kids explore this great BIG NEW TECHNICAL WORLD. Sit with them on your lap and teach them to play the simple games on safe children's websites. Buy as many learning toys as you can afford. The exposure to technology and educational toys will help prepare them for school and for life.

ALL Kids Learn with Puzzles and Childrens Games

I found some of the best kids jigsaw puzzles online. Look at the kids jigsaw puzzles in our Jigsaws and Puzzle Shop.

PLEASE NOTE: Everything on this website is SAFE FOR CHILDREN and youth. There are absolutely NO links to Adult content that could cause understandable concern. The links for purchasing require adult authorization and credit card information and cannot be used directly here. I want this site to provide SAFE multi-age FUN for everyone!