This is Pinga, my daughter's Webkinz pet. Have you heard of Webkinz? If you don't have children, most probably you haven't, or if you live outside of northern America, again, it is most probable that you don't know anything about this virtual world of kids. I didn't know anything about it until we went to Canada. Our friends had bought a Webkinz pet for our daughter and that is how we entered the Webkinz world.Webkinz pets are little plush pets that come with a secret code. You go to the Webkinz website, enter your code (entering the code means adopting a virtual pet) and your plush pet becomes a virtual friend. Your virtual friend is given a virtual room that you should decorate using virtual money, Kinzcash, which you should earn in the Webkinz world. There are different ways of earning money. You can go to the employment center and get a job, or you can play different types of games and make money. With your money you can buy furniture, clothes, food and extra room, even a garden for your pet. You are responsible from his health and cleanliness, too. You should give him his fruit and milk everyday to have a healthy pet. You should let him play with some toys so that he is happy. You should also enroll him at the academy and let him take some courses to give him a good education.
That is not all. There is also an area where the Webkinz pet owners can meet and chat. It is a totally controlled chat environment where the kids can use only fixed phrases in their chats.
If you have bought a garden for your pet, you can also plant your own plants, take care of them everyday and harvest your produce when they are ready. You can give this produce raw to your pet or you can buy a grill and cook them!
The members have also a post system. If you know the user name of a fellow Webkinz pet-owner you can send him/her a post or even a gift.
As you see it is a virtual world for kids and my daughter is addicted to it now. The problem is, when she is at school it is me who has to give food to her pet, or take care of her garden, and even go to work or play games to earn some money! :-)
I like the fact that my daughter is using her English while playing in Webkinz world, but I am a bit scared that she is only 6 and already a net-addict. Not only her, the little boy also enjoys watching the pet and the games we play in Webkinz world...
Oh, well, we are a family of nerds.. Nothing to do about it...
2 comments:
Yasemin, my daughter has 4 Webkinz already and her best friend has almost 15!!! My daughter logs on in the morning and in the evening to take care of her Webkinz. She was in trouble one time and was not allowed to log on for 5 days. All of her Webkinz survived but she had to redo her garden :-(
Hi Nilufer, welcome to my blog :-) The daughters of our friends, who gave this gift to my daughter, had each something like a dozen of Webkinz pets!!! OK, they are really cuddly and beautiful, but there is no need to buy more than a couple..
My daughter is punished for bad behavior nowadays and she has no access to Webkinz for 3 weeks! Guess who is taking care of her 'Pinga' ;-)
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