Tux Paint 9.21c

How do children learn? They learn by playing and the more interesting elements they have to play with, the better. Tux Paint is an educational program intended for children aged 3-12 and designed in order to develop their creativity and make them familiar with graphics editors.

It is a free, open source program intended especially for children. It provides them with canvas and tools for drawing and painting. Apart from some basic ones like paintbrush, pencil, ready-made geometrical shapes or the option of adding text, Tux also offers the so-called stamp, that is a tool by means of which they can add some ready-made graphic elements such as the previously drawn animals or photo fragments. The program also offers the set of the so-called magical tools, known to some older users as filters, as well as some other advanced functions typical of, for instance, Photoshop. These tools also involve special effects like image blurring, color and contrast edition and some other tools for drawing that can create, for instance, railway tracks or grass. There is also a set of ready-made pictures to be colored as well as a large number of stamps to be downloaded form the programs’ website.

Its interface is very easy to operate and parents can adjust its looks and complexity to the child’s age. A great advantage is its compatibility with various platforms: Linux, BSD, Windows, Mac OS X and Haiku, as well as the fact that apart from this program, there are also several educational applications with a friendly penguin called Tux.