Andy's Amazing Adventures Childrens Magazine Review

Today sees the launch of a brand new children's magazine from the BBC - Andy's Amazing Adventures.

This brand new monthly magazine is based on the hit CBeebies television shows, Andy's Wild Adventures and Andy's Dinosaur Adventures (and new adventures coming soon!).  Lara and Holly are both massive fans of Andy's Dinosaur Adventures and watching snippets from the show is one of their favourite things to do when they get home from school and nursery in the evenings.

The new Andy's Amazing Adventures magazine brings together topics on animals, dinosaurs and prehistoric creatures into the now tried and tested CBeebies magazine format.  With a great mixture of sticker scenes, colouring, puzzles and simple maths and writing challenges, this new periodical for kids is well suited to children from 3-6 years old.  Both Lara (6) and Holly (3) found content in the magazine to interest them.  Lara liked to read the cartoon stories about Andy returning to the time of the triceratops.  Holly most enjoyed the sticker pages but also really rose to the challenge of some of the simple maths puzzles that practice early KS1 and foundation skills such as comparing sizes or counting instances of animals.

If you have a mini dinosaur fan then I think they will absolutely LOVE this magazine.  It is packed full of prehistoric facts, all of which are written in really consumable format suitable for small people to digest.  There is even a T-rex rap that you can fill in using your stickers and use to practice writing the shapes of the letters in his name!

If you're a regular reader of CBeebies magazines then you'll recognise some of the 7 key areas of learning that feature in the magazine - from tracing letters and numbers to drawing in your own interpretation of a scene.  There are also activities to cut out and glue together.  Perhaps the biggest hit in our house for both girls is the fact that they can now make their own (paper) version of Andy's famous gizmo... I shall leave them to argue over who gets to create it.

I like this magazine because of the wide range of ages that it appeals to.  There are some genuinely interesting facts (you can cut out and keep fact cards from each issue) to be found in the magazine as well as the fun and games.

Of course, no kids magazine would be complete without a free gift on the front, would it?  After all, that's what really draws the little people in!  The first issue of Andy's Amazing Adventures comes with a T-Rex dinosaur grabber who chomps up a selection of mini dinos!  How could you possibly resist?

NEW! - The Furchester Hotel CBeebies Magazine

This week sees the launch of a brand new CBeebies magazine aimed at preschoolers -  The Furchester Hotel.  Based on the hit CBeebies programme, The Furchester Hotel CBeebies magazine is packed full of the bright friendly faces of Elmo and his aunt, uncle, cousin and friends in the Furchester-Fuzz family.

Holly is just at the perfect age to start reading and enjoying CBeebies magazines as she is starting to be able to write basic letters and numbers, and understands the challenged of puzzles.  Together, I read Holly the pages and she fills in all of the answers, sticks on the appropriate sticker or colours in the pages. It's teamwork and she absolutely LOVES it.  It is very unusual for Holly to spend more than 5 minutes doing any one thing, but a magazine such as the Furchester Hotel magazine seems to capture her attention as it offers lots of different points of interaction.

On the first edition of the new Furchester Hotel CBeebies Magazine there is a make-and-do project to make portraits of all of the brightly coloured characters from the show.  Everything you need to make four portrait frames including fuzzy felt, googly eyes and foam frames.  Holly loved this and created her own masterpieces.

Inside there are stickers to place on almost every page.  I was very pleased to see that Holly really wanted to put the stickers in the right place (rather than her normal "stick-everything-in-one-big-pile" approach.  She seemed to genuinely want to work through the magazine and tackle all of the challenges from counting to spotting, from sorting to sizing.  There are basic pre-school maths, reading and writing challenges to keep your children busy and encourage them to start applying simple pre-school skills with a fun angle.

Holly most enjoyed filling in a comparison of herself with Elmo.  She was very excited to learn that Elmo is 3 and a half and enjoyed tracing his name.  I taught her to write the number 3 (her own age) which she found very tricky but was unbelievably proud when she managed it.  Afterwards, she drew a picture of her favourite thing - a cucumber! (Elmo's favourite is the cookie monster).

This was also Holly's first experience of simple mazes (this helps them to practice pen control) and puzzles.  The Furchester Hotel magazine also features several colouring pages which are particularly fun to fill in because of all of the brightly coloured monsters.

This monthly magazine is out now.

Eco Kids Planet - Magazine Review

Eco Kids planet is a new monthly magazine for children but with a bit of a difference – targeted at children aged around 7 to 12 years old, Eco Kids Planet is a factual magazine packed full of science and nature facts, activities and games. I think its an excellent magazine which has the balance between education and fun for this age group just about right.

Lara is just a touch on the young side for Eco Kids Planet and was a little overwhelmed by the volume of reading content but you could tell that she desperately wanted to get going and find out more – finding out science “facts” is a big theme at school for her at present and you could see her eyes light up when she realised that this magazine would allow her to practice her new skills AND learn about the world.  She very much enjoys he challenge of reading new words and since reading these magazines she has been able to add a few tricky ones from the regular glossary feature including "meteorological", "meander" and "mollusc"!

Eco Kids Planet has a different theme each month – sometimes a part of the world such as the Alps, or the Amazon river, and sometimes a scientific phenomenon such as “light” in nature or animal “superpowers”. Each edition features animal facts, geography exercises, lots of beautiful images from the natural world, board games, puzzles, stories and step-by-step instructions for creative activities on the same theme. One copy of this magazine would probably provide enough entertainment for a week of school holiday fun for Lara.

I think it is brilliant to see a children's magazine that isn't covered in cheap plastic toys, or the beaming faces of television characters – this science and geography magazine really appeals to Lara's inquisitive and active side and her current thirst for knowledge. I also think its good value for money, certainly compared to other children's magazines – an annual subscription currently costs £29.90 but there are special offers for your first few editions if you subscribe by direct debit.

The magazine is glossy and packed full of material – it feels much more like an adult's magazine than a kids one, except for the noticable lack of advertising (this, we like).  

Lara has most enjoyed the puzzles in Eco Kids Planet but she has also enjoyed looking at the pictures of giant amazonian fish (great when your mother is a fish-a-phobic) and awe-inspiring birds of prey. For the pages with lots of text, we've read the magazine together and on a couple of occasions this has prompted Lara to ask to go online to find out more about the topic – we've used the magazine as a starting point for learning about different types of dolphins, or what the biggest bird is. As an adult, on the surface, the facts in the magazine are quite high-level but for Lara, these are her first introduction to topics such as rainforests, or avalanches and these facts are just the beginning of her learning adventure.

If your child is interested in science, nature or geography, or if you are looking for something which will spark their interest in a different type of reading (perhaps you've a keen reader who normally sticks to fiction) then I'd highly recommend Eco Kids Planet.

Storytime Magazine - Classic Tales to Read, Love and Share

This week sees the launch of a brand new children's magazine, quite unlike anything else currently available on newsagent shelves - Storytime.  Lara is one of the first people to have got their hands on this first issue Storytime and I'm delighted with it - I plan to subscribe (there's a whopping discount when you do!)

Storytime is a thing of beauty - it is filled with classic children's tales and amazing illustrations.  Each issue features around 6-10 stories or poems including fairy tales, myths and legends, folk tales, fables and rhymes from all over the world. Many of the stories are ones you will probably know and love already but for instance, in this first issue there was a beautifully illustrated Irish folk tale about the fairy bride which I had never heard before.

Lara was instantly captured by the magic of Storytime; she begged me to take it in to school to show her friends and teacher.  Lara has enjoyed trying to read some of the stories herself but I think, at present, Storytime is probably more designed for me to read to her.  In fact, there are tips and tricks for parents within the magazine to make storytelling a fabulous experience for everyone in the family.

At the back of the first issue of Storytime magazine there are a few puzzles, a board game and a colouring page - all activities to make your children think about the stories that they have heard; however, it feels like the stories are the main focus of the magazine.

The biggest hit in this first edition of Storytime magazine, within our house, was an extract from the start of Lewis Carroll's "Alices Adventures in Wonderland".  I'd never thought of reading it to Lara before (partly because I thought the turn of phrase was a bit hard-going for a 5 year old) but when I read this passage in Storytime, Lara was totally absorbed and very disappointed when the excerpt was finished!

Storytime prides itself on the fact that it doesn't contain any advertising and it doesn't come with cheap plastic toys or sweets stuck to the front of it - this is a magazine your children will hopefully treasure for a long time.  I really hope my girls do.  I have wonderful memories of a similar magazine from my own childhood (called the StoryTeller) whose stories I still remember fondly.  I would say that there is one thing I think that Storytime is currently lacking if it is going to be a thing of memories and that is a couple of modern, brand new stories mixed in with the family favourites and classics.

Issue one costs £3.99 and Storytime will be issued monthly.