This site offers more than just images of beloved characters like Curious George and the Berenstain Bears. While they're all based around popular PBS Kids cartoons, each game presented here has been designed to meet national educational standards—for instance, a hide-and-seek game may supply a lesson in science, a matching game math skills. Parents can even track the benefits of their children's educational play with a personalized progress chart.

You can actually find games and activities for kids up to age 12 on this vast site, but it's also one of the few on the Web that houses a full preschool arcade. A slew of simple games—connect the dots, match the shapes, count the fish, etc.—are easily accessible for young kids, as are its creativity builders, like a make-your-own-cartoon-character program.

Don't let the French name scare you away—this absolutely beautiful European site is easier for English-speaking preschoolers to navigate and enjoy than many American sites. The only text you'll find is for parents, and each activity is designed for completely intuitive control. If your child can use a mouse, she can work the kaleidoscope, conduct the virtual chorus, or play with the interactive Mondrian painting.

More than just a collection of games, this site is a vast virtual world (à la Second Life) in which kids can create their own waddling avatars, decorate a home, and interact with their penguin buddies online (a "safe chat" option limits players to preselected phrases, to head off any possible harassment or inappropriate language). But it's not just about socializing: There are plenty of games to take part in, too, including ice fishing and sled racing.

The best thing about this game hub is its almost overwhelming breadth and variety. If your child won't fall for the more obviously educational fare (e.g., solving math problems to score hits in a baseball game), she can instead plug words into a Mad Libs story, guide a diver past sharks to a sunken treasure, or launch snowballs at parachuting penguins.

There are scads of games to try here, with a wide range of difficulty, so a kindergartener and a fourth-grader will be equally challenged. Kids can navigate their way through mazes, construct puzzles, fly paper planes through obstacle courses, or play tic-tac-toe against the world's cleverest beaver. The site is updated regularly, so it's worth coming back often.

Yes, this immensely popular gaming site does host sweepstakes and money-prize giveaways, but those are for adults only. Strategy-loving kids can still find oodles of fun here, especially within the genre of Tetris-like matching puzzles. You'll also find plenty of word games, card games, and good old-fashioned board games like checkers and backgammon. The sleek, high-quality graphics are also a big draw.

The games you'll find here are addictively fun—the kind that make you want to keep trying over and over again to beat your last high score. They're old- fashioned arcade games in the truest sense, in that points are what matter as you flee a mummy, sink pirate ships, or launch dinosaur eggs from a catapult.

With the seemingly endless array of high-quality games on offer here, you may have to be strict with time limits or risk losing all parental access to your home PC. Solve mysteries, go bowling, perform snowboarding stunts, bake cakes, care for virtual children, race Jet Skis, run a flower shop—it's pretty safe to say there's something for everyone here.