WhyVille offers a virtual environment for mostly 8-14 year old children. The accounts are free. The concept of moving around using avatars is similar to Second Life. You get to design your own avatar (half a child), chat with peers, and move around to different destinations, play games, and earn money. Earned money can then be spent on building your own parts of WhyVille, purchase pets, etc.

The WhyVille games are surprisingly educational with a range of activities from science and math to art, civics, and economics. The activities target the right age group. Children playing do need to be taught to steer away from strange behaving avatars and those using poor language. When played under parent supervision this is a good environment to learn in - both through the games and for the purpose of getting practice in steering away from the inappropriate.