Introduce your child to the wonderful world of online avatars with Mini-Mizer. You can help your child express his or her creativity by exploring all of the different ways to design a caricature of his or her very own. Using Lego-style building blocks adds to the fun, particularly if your child is already familiar with and has played with actual Lego blocks before.

The premise of Mini-Mizer is really quite simple: You start with a basic Lego figure. And then your child can customize this figure across a myriad of different dimensions: Your child can customize the avatar’s facial expression, hair style and hair color, color and style of shirt and pants, and what type of hat, scarf, and shoes it is wearing, and even whether the character has wings or a tail!

This game encourages youngsters to explore all of the different ways people in the real world look and how they dress. It empowers them to take creative control over creating their own characters, using completely interchangeable parts. For instance, with the simple click of a mouse button, the avatar might switch from brown hair to blond hair, or from wearing blue jeans to a red skirt. Youngsters can even pick different objects for the avatar to hold in its hand, and you even get to pick which hand the object is being held in.

Games like this one not only challenge your child’s creative intellect, but also encourage the development of your child’s hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills, namely that of being able to manipulate the information on the screen by moving the mouse around and clicking on the mouse buttons.

Has your child created a masterpiece that you would simply like to save, or which you would like to use elsewhere online? The Mini-Mizer website even provides instructions on how you can save the avatar that your child has customized.

With hundreds of possible combinations of characteristics to build your avatar from, this will help to stimulate your child’s sense of curiosity and creativity.