PBSKids.org and PBSKidsGo.org
The first time my son was ever allowed to play on the internet was really a fluke. He was only 5 at the time, and I'd had no intention of letting him on the internet for a couple more years, at least. Not only did I feel he was a little too young, but with dial-up access I didn't need yet another member of the household tying up the phone line. Fate, however, took it into her hands to break the CD player in the computer and suddenly the computer games no longer worked. PBSKids.org came to the rescue — although it didn't solve that pesky dial-up problem.
PBSKids.org is an online companion to all of the children's shows available on PBS. Each show has its own individual site, available from the home page. In addition, the home page offers sections for games, stories, coloring and music, which are links to many of the games from each show's site, many of the coloring pages, links to some of the various music pieces, etc. It's your choice — do you feel like playing everything to do with Clifford today, or do you want to explore games from many shows at once? There is also a drop-down menu navigator which will take you to some shows and links that are not available on the main part of the home page.
The PBSKidsGo! site is a relatively new offering, and is aimed at the tween/early teen set. This site only contains the shows for older children, about age 10 and up. There are a couple of other links which are not available on the main PBSKids site, such as Media Smart!, a site that teaches children to be media savvy and not get sucked in by slick advertising.
The one thing that I liked best about the PBSKids sites is that there is no outside advertising, and no links to outside sites, with a very few exceptions. (Such as taking you to the site to download the Macromedia Flash player, which is needed for most of the games.) This helps to keep down the chances that your child will accidentally end up somewhere you never intended he go. Of course, you should always supervise, but the way that PBSKids.org is set up, you can relax and not feel like you need to hover all the time.
To make things easy for kids to navigate, each and every page on all sites includes the PBSKids logo, which takes them straight back to the home page. This is good for a beginning surfer who doesn't know how to use the browser navigation buttons yet.
Every site that I've ever looked at has high quality resources available. No cheapo, fuzzy games here! Everything is crisp and well-rendered, and while some games might be kind of simple or boring, most are quite fun. For the shows that are educational as well as fun (Cyberchase, Between the Lions, etc.) the games reinforce the concepts that were learned on the show.
Some of the sites are more educational than others, but of course part of this depends on the educational content of the show in question. Clifford, for example, is just not going to have the same educational content as, say, Cyberchase. For even more education content, there are links to resources for both parents and teachers available at the bottom of the home page.
Overall, I highly recommend the PBSKids websites. There are few minor quibbles — you might find a game or coloring page in one place but not be able to find it in another, and with dial-up there are always the graphics loading issues — but they aren't enough to really fuss about. PBSKids is an excellent way to further extend the fun and knowledge they have gained from watching their favorite shows, in an engaging and exciting way. I think you'll find it's an excellent online resource, and well worthy of a place in your bookmarks list.
