Reader Recommendations: Online Playgrounds

A parental friendly, social networking site similar to Facebook and MySpace for kids and teens, in a safe, internet environment. Site features include chat rooms, photo sharing and video chat with other members.

Fun kids activities with simple crafts, fun games, printable coloring pages, crosswords, school activities and more.

Pandanda is a site where kids can chat with friends. Of course parents have the ability to choose their chat choice. They have a choice between "Pre-selected Chat" or "Safe Chat". Pre-selected Chat lets the child only chat by clicking on the sentence they would like to say. BUT if the child types a bad word (You guys should probably know what kind of words I mean), they will get warned. Second time they do, they will get banned from Pandanda for 24 hours. Pandanda is a very neat site. When he/she signs up for Pandanda they get to pick their own username and password, their chat setting (which parents approve or dis-approve by email) and they are a Panda bear so they get to chose their color. To find out the rest you'll just have to go to the site.

The Mouse Club is a free website for children, teachers and adults. Children can follow the friendly mice, Roly, Red Mouse and Blue Mouse and play with them in the Club House. The site is colorful and lively and packed full of games, activities and stories to keep children amused for hours.

This is a FUN adventure site that is a learning experience for all and loads of fun! This site is a site where you create your own character, then save it and come up with a nickname and password! Then you pick and Island to go to and save it according to the info the people you're helping give to you, to help you out a little. There is an Island called Time Tangled Island where you help everyone their by going WAY, WAY back in time and putting everything back in it's rightful place in order to save the future! In every one of the Islands in Poptropica there is a building where you go in to chat and play with the other boys and girls who go to Poptropica to learn and play! Whenever you save an Island, one of the persons there gives you a reward called a Gold Medallion plus 100 Credits (Poptropica's version of virtual money) which you spend by clicking on the gold star at the top right corner of the Poptropica screen. What you do is click on then when it loads click on the tab that says Store, There you can buy special outfits and costumes for you Poptropica character! When you go into one of the chatting , and gaming rooms you can not get these special outfits from other players! Because when you click Costumize (you'll find out, it's too hard to explain) and then a character with one of these outfit or costumes it won't let you put on any of the clothes or accessories that they contain! Well, I don't want to spoil the surprise awaiting you so that's all I'll tell you! Enjoy the game and have loads of learning, chatting and playing experience!

Shidonni is a web based virtual world for young children (5 to 12) , based on the simple joy of drawing characters and animals, but with a 21st century twist. After creating their drawings, children play with them as they magically 'come alive' in a wonderful animated world. It's like crossing "Windows Paint" with a virtual pets game . From an educational perspective, Shidonni promotes kids' 21st century computer literacy skills and supports early childhood creative development by focusing on creativity and imagination.