Kidthing Gives Free Content for Read Across America

Have you downloaded your free kidthing player yet? Are you getting the free children's literature they pass along to us from month to month? If you can't answer "yes" to these questions and you teach, work with, or have children, you are missing out...big time. I was excited to find out that kidthing is a partner with NEA in giving away FREE downloads of selected books from the NEA Read Across America book list throughout this school year.
The featured free book until September 30 is "The Storytellers Candle" by Lucia Gonzales and Lulu Delacre. These books don't expire and time out so you don't have them anymore, they continue to be in your library. There are more on the way and I will keep you informed as they become available.
The kidthing websiote has the details and they say:
"Pre-school, kindergarten, elementary and junior-high school teachers and librarians are eligible to participate in this program. No purchase is required. Selected books will be available for download only during the calendar month they are featured as the Read Across America book. You will need to download and install the free kidthing player and register with kidthing to receive these books."
On www.kidthing.com/nea , there is a sign up now button where you put in your information to sign up for the NEA book list program. Once you fill in teacher information, you will be prompted to download the player. The player is a new version so if you have the player already, you will be able to also get the new version and re-download your previously purchased material again. If you have purchased a lot of content, the re-downloading of your content might take awhile, which could be kind of a hassle - but at this time I don't think there is any other way to back up your purchases. They ask that you sign in with the same user and password so you get your old purchased content. Maybe they are on a compressed download and then unpack in the re-unstall so it doesn't take too long. I will have to check into this and let you know.

Whenever I post on the kidthing free downloads, they are some of my most popular posts. they continue to be top of the list for folks to read. I hope you will go to one of my archived posts on the initial kidthing review or the interview on blog talk radio with the CEO, Larry Hitchcock.
This exciting children's book player plays interactive books from major publishers right on your computer without having children be on the Internet. You purchase the media and literature you want, download it and play it with the player. It is iTunes for children's books basically - yet it has many elements of social networking with family and friends online in a safe environment to share books, video, pictures and games.
National Geographic Kids, Dr. Seuss and Wee Sing are just a few of the major titles that have agreed to offer kidthing content. If I were a teacher in an elementary classroom again, I would have this on a learning center computer with headphones in a heart beat - and best of all, the titles are very reasonable in price and For your special needs students and students that need support in reading with an engaging medium, kidthing could just be the ticket.

All the best to you!
Lon

Lon Thornburg is an assistive technology specialist and professional development trainer who lives in Oregon and serves 12 districts in 7 counties. He hosts the No Limits 2 Learning Blog and The No Limits 2 Learning Live Talk Show on Blog Talk Radio. He is sharing as a contributing writer on LD LIVE!