Paint Shop Pro and Photoshop Elements might be impressive pieces of software for adults but children probably find them boring.

Tux Paint is a simple painting program that features a penguin named Tux, who offers help when and where relevant.

Basic shapes are easy to draw and fill, and there is a nice selection of Magic Tools. These are all very easy to use and are capable of some very impressive effects.

Saving and opening files is done with thumbnails of the pictures rather than the traditional dialogue. Pictures can be saved as stamps that can then be used to 'place' a picture onto another drawing.

Tux Paint 0.9 offers a number of improvements on previous versions, including updates to the "Text" and "Stamp" tool interfaces, improvements to the colour palette, and support for a wider range of display sizes.

Note that the download here links to the Sourceforge download page where you'll need to select a local download mirror to download.