I agree, Gnome would be a good choice, everything is out of the way. I’ve seen people who never use computers, use Gnome and basically understand how to do most things within minutes. Plus it’s something recognizable, similar to mobile with big floating icons.
But all depends on whether or not the system is fast enough, Manjaro GNOME runs pretty good on my 11 year old sony EB-series laptop (core i3)
Its a DE geared towards children and also has allot of education options from reading till programming. But also ’ normal’ use like browsing, mediaplayers etc. are possible
A list of some programs that can be integrated in Sugar both educational and non-educational
I use XFCE and love it, but it’s Gnome I’d install on a PC for my niece or nephew if they were still kids.
Like already mentioned, Gnome seems somewhat simpler and cleaner.
Plus, XFCE is great also because it can be tweaked to suits our needs, but that imply having to tweak and to tinker with it. If your kids are anything like my niece and nephew were, that’s not something that will interest them much… to begin with
I always recommend cinnamon to new linux users as its smooth stable and has a familiar layout. Budgie is nice and simple too, I’m not a fan of gnome layout but that’s a just a personal thing. Kde maybe a bit overwhelming for kids with all the options plus it can break with updates