Online: Disney Playhouse
AJ currently doesn’t get much time in front of the computer. When she does, it’s usually to spend some time using TuxPaint or to play games at Disney Playhouse.
Compared to many other sites we’ve looked at, Disney Playhouse has high quality content for kids, especially preschoolers. The games and activities on the site are really well done; almost all of them feature verbal instructions, making it much easier for preshool kids to know how to play the games and navigate around the mini-sites. Most of the featured programs are also shows that we really like, including Charlie and Lola, Bear in the Big Blue House, and The Koala Brothers.
Although the main playhouse page has ads including pop-ups (still pretty crappy in my opinion), the featured sections are all ad free. It’s also fairly easy for kids to unknowingly click on fun-looking links that actually take them to less desirable parts of the disney website. AJ has become pretty adept at knowing which links keep her in the playhouse and which ones don’t, but supervision here can be pretty important.
What other sites would you recommend for preschool age kids?
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Kiddley uses and recommends 
We love cbeebies in our house http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/
It has no ads and lots of great characters (Bob the Builder, Charlie and Lola, Teletubbies). Everything is age appropriate.
For tinies Kneebouncers is great. They can press any key on the keyboard and see a reaction from the cute critter characters. Our 2 yo thinks it’s fab.
http://www.kneebouncers.com/kneebouncers.html
Ali June 8th, 2006 21:11
http://www.noggin.com.au
is great. Lots of favourites like Miffy, Maisy, Pinky Dinky Doo, Max and Ruby, Play with me Sesame etc etc. And great, easy to follow audio. So important for littlies.
If you are in Australia and you have a primary school aged child, the following is a fantastic site.
http://www.beenleigss.eq.edu.au/requested_sites/audiostories/index.html
Teaches the kids like they are taught at school and is very educational while still being heaps of fun for them.
Jo June 8th, 2006 21:56
we love http://www.pbs.org/parents/
and
http://www.pbs.org/parents/
fantastic content for use on or off teh computer, great program descriptions with learning goals and corresponding activities (and you don’t need to watch the programs to do them). the ones for mister rogers’ neighborhood are especially good.
mrspilkington June 8th, 2006 22:18
that’s funny– i was thinking of Kiddley just this morning when i sent a birthday card from TVO kids!
http://www.tvokids.com/
this site is chock-full of fun stuff. i’m sure i haven’t seen 10% of it all. (i just discovered the construction-site cam today!) my favourite: ‘sounds like fun’ in the ‘peep and the big wide world’ section, under “preschool games.” –cheers!
kelli ann June 8th, 2006 23:00
The problem I see with many of these sites is that they require users to have broadband. For people on dialp-up, there are few alternatives except to buy PC-ROM games. It took me hours to download TuxPaint, for example.
Hsien Lei June 8th, 2006 23:41
My daughter loves the disney website, we also use the pbs one too.
paula June 8th, 2006 23:49
http://Noggin.com is the favorite in our house.
Natalie June 9th, 2006 00:07
My Little Man loves clicking around http://www.pbskids.org and at barely 3 years old, he’s pretty skilled at finding his way around. Not surprisingly, the Sesame Street section is excellent.
The Feminist Mafia June 9th, 2006 00:09
Kindersite offers searchable activities for children up to age 6 or so. You can search by category. Most of their activities are linked to outside sites such as disney, pbs, bbc, etc. All very kid friendly. The site is widely used by early childhood schools.
Jayme June 9th, 2006 00:30
We’re fans of the CBC Kids website at our house (CBC being the Canadian public broadcaster). Not sure how it would fare for smaller ones, but in particular my 9yr old step daughter likes Sushi Samurai (and I must admit we’ve played a few levels ourselves).
emira June 9th, 2006 02:04
My preschooler and first-grader LOVE http://www.starfall.com — lots of FUN, high-quality games and activities that teach reading, and tons of free printables as well. Many schools use this sight — it’s fantastic!
Debbie June 9th, 2006 03:04
One more thought – Don’t be afraid to let your preschooler try level 3 (or higher!) of http://www.starfall.com. The “Who am I?” section of level 3 is particularly fun for my daughter.
Also, http://www.nickjr.com is a great site for preschooleres.
Debbie June 9th, 2006 03:15
Up to ten- http://www.uptoten.com/kids/boowakwala-navigation-games.html
emily June 9th, 2006 05:35
It’s not actually interactive, but our whole family loves this. Little boys with digger fascination will especially like it, beautiful one for boys and their dads.
http://www.jcbsong.co.uk/jcbvideo.asp
We’ve found Elmo’s keyboard-o-rama on the sesame street site is the best for our three year old to play by herself, otherwise she needs help using the mouse function on my ibook.
Penni June 9th, 2006 14:30
I know most people (including me) hate Boohbahs, but their site is brilliant.
http://www.boohbah.com/zone.html
My son learnt how to control a mouse through their site, and there is some pretty iteresting stuff on there.
Sarah June 9th, 2006 19:31
NickJr.com has absolutely tons of great Flash and Shockwave based games for preschool and lower primary kids (my two girls love it.) If you go there, they launch the site in a popup window, which can be annoying if little fingers miss the mouse and jump off the window. I bookmark the direct URL to the page inside the popup, and use that instead:
http://www.nickjr.com/playtime/index.jhtml
Dora the explorer games, Blue’s Clues and heaps more. Highly recommended.
Cheers,
- Ian
Ian Chia June 12th, 2006 12:24
http://www.sesameworkshop.org
I find this much easier to swallow than the more popular tv channel sites, and my daughter has gotten a lot more milage out of this than any other site.
Most of the more recent games are specifically preschool targeted, with pre-reading and pre-math skills (sequencing, letter/number recogntiion, grouping, etc.). The other sites seem to have more entertainment games than ones targeting building certain skills or concepts.
There is, however, a lot of older content on the site from when the internet was in a pre-flash era… but still plenty of useful stuff. I am, however, a little tired of having to “Grovercise!” every day.
wookie June 14th, 2006 01:21