KidThing — Stories, Games, and Educational Content for Kids
Posted on January 17, 2009 at 8:00 am
Kidthing is a safe and secure place to find games and educational content for children.
Kidthing recently won The National Parenting Center’s 2009 Seal of Approval and has been selected to be the sole digital distribution partner for the National Education Association’s Read Across America 2008-09 resource calendar and guide. As part of this award-winning literacy program, Kidthing offers teachers a free digital download of select titles featured in NEA’s Read Across America calendar for use in the classroom each month.
It is is the first and only free digital media player made just for kids. It was created by parents to give kids a safe place to play and learn online away from web browsers and ads. After you download the free software you can select from an online store that has carefully selected and parent-approved digital animated books, interactive games, activities and videos. The downloads start at under a dollar and can be played even when the computer is not online. Kids can enjoy it away from home or in the car.
I was pleased to see that they now feature stories read aloud by Mrs. P, played by actress Kathy Kinney, who invites children to use their imaginations while she reads classic stories beside the crackling fire in her virtual library. She tells classics like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Little Red Riding Hood, The Princess and the Pea, The Frog Prince and The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin.
It’s just getting started, but it seems to be very thoughtfully designed, with excellent content and a refreshing absence of ads. Definitely worth a look for any family with school-age children.
is a terrific new DVD series from the Smithsonian Network that shows us some of the best ideas about energy, flight, and building materials technology come from observing nature. Biomimetics is the new science of looking to nature for answers to modern challenges. Flies improve search and rescue and cockroaches inspire space engineers. Fish become cars and airplane design mimics birds. Gorgeously photographed, each episode is like a cross between CSI and McGuyver.
, the E. Nesbit classic about children who discover a magical creature and have a series of adventures when he gives them one wish a day. 
, Meryl Streep as a sympathetic psychiatrist in 
and as a Holocaust survivor in 
and as a high-strung food writer in 
, Barbra Streisand as a sympathetic psychiatrist (is there a pattern here?) in 
and as musical comedy star Fanny Brice in 
(plus Omar Sharif as Nicky Arnstein), Carol Kane as a turn of the century immigrant in 
, Brendan Fraser as the only Jew in the fancy prep school in 
, Robin Williams as a club owner named Goldman — or is it Coleman? — in 
, George Segal as a Jewish cop (and Eileen Heckert as his mother) in 
, Ben Kingsley as a Holocaust survivor in 
, Ben Cross as an Olympic athlete in 
, Jessica Tandy as a Southern aristocrat in 
, Dustin Hoffman as Carl Bernstein in 
, Jennifer Gray as Baby who will NOT be put in a corner in 
, and Woody Allen in just about anything.