My (Daughters') WebKinz

So I was in the elementary library after school a few weeks back talking to the librarian and her daughter came into the room and told her "I can't get to WebKinz from here...". I had heard about this site and did not quite get a grasp of the scope of it so I took the chance to pose a few questions. After getting a basic understanding of what the site was about I went on with my business, but never really forgot about it. The whole idea of the online environment just for kids kept swirling around my brain and I really wanted to see how similar to other online environments it really was - so I went to a Hallmark store and promptly bought each of my children their very own Webkin (at approximately $14 a piece).

Now here is where it gets interesting because my 4-year-old twin girls thought daddy had just bought them another stuffed animal (which of course they loved and immediately became their favorite toy - at least for the next few days or so). But when we got home, my wife fired up her laptop and I jumped on my tablet pc and we each took a girl and entered the world of Webkins. I am surprised that someone in the neighborhood didn't call the police when our daughters saw the virtual rendition of the stuffed animal they were holding on the computer because the excitement almost spilled out into the street.

At first, they were satisfied with watching mommy and daddy play the games, buy things, and arrange furniture, etc., but eventually they wanted to take control of their own private virtual living space themselves. My wife came up with the idea of putting a heart sticker on the left button of a little USB travel mouse I carry in my bag so they could remember which button to push (laptop tracks pads are difficult for 4-year-old fingers apparently), then a little instruction on drag-and-drop and they were off. They only thing that my wife or I do now is to log them in (while they can type their own names, the extra long/unique user names for the site give them a little trouble).

Tonight, I watched one of my daughters mine for gems, hunt for charms in Charm Forest, play several games, and buy two chairs at the shop. Then she placed the chairs in her WebKinz rooms. The only question she asked me during this whole process was if she had enough money (KinzCash) to buy both chairs. My other daughter clicked on her charcoal grill, opened the cook book, memorized the ingredients, went to the shop, bought the ingredients, and cooked up a special food for one of her WebKinz….all with little interference from me (she forgot to click "buy" the first time she went into the W Shop).

Many of the games are educational - one of my personal favorites is one where you take random letters and try to put them together to spell words. Depending on how you put them together you get more points - don't get enough points and you don't advance another level. Another game teaches spatial placement by setting up pathways to get the "pets" on one side of the screen to their "homes" on the other. You have to click on each piece of the pathway to make them flip until the pathway is complete - and the possibilities are endless (no two game boards are the same).

With the purchase of a WebKinz, you get 1 year of free web site access…I don't know what happens after that year is up…or how much it costs (EEK!). BTW - My wife and I find several of the games as good methods of winding down at the end of the day...now who's WebKinz are they again?

As for allowing WebKinz through the content filter...I'm not sold yet. There is a chat area that I have not fully explored and I wouldn't want anyone with malicious intent contacting our elementary students while they are under our supervision (obviously they should be watched by the parents while they are at home).