Saturday, October 27, 2012

Stone Soup



October is National Children's Magazine Month.  I think it's a great fake holiday because I remember how thrilled I was to get my magazines as a kid.  Cricket was always devoured the day it came and I kept them for years.  Older Toad is subscribed to Spider currently.  That's been so well loved I've subscribed him to a bunch of new stuff lately.

Another kids magazine that's still around from that time is Stone Soup.  The picture above is my artwork from when I was a kid and took classes at the organization who publishes the magazine.  I won't date myself by saying when it was included.  I just subscribed Older Toad to the magazine, thinking he's ready and next year he might be interested in submitting his own artwork.

Another new one for us is ChopChop.  I had been on the fence about this one but another homeschool mom at coop was raving about it so I thought it was time.  We haven't gotten our first issue yet.

We're ready for Ranger Rick.  We've been getting Big Backyard and I must have checked the wrong box on the renewal.  I need to contact them to change it.  It still gets read, but too quickly, and the games are too young for Older toad and too old for younger.

Zoobooks is another new one for us.   A friend gave us some back issues last year and they were enjoyed.  I'm thinking they will be great companions for our nature based lapbooks.
Save 81% with FREE SHIPPING + Get a FREE poster and FREE animal stickers with your Zoobooks magazine!

 National Geographic Kids was a failure here.  I didn't like all the ads and sponsored fake content.  The Toads didn't respond to the confusing layout and they weren't getting fully read.  We didn't renew.  I really like regular National Geographic so we'll wait til everyone is old enough for that.

Another failure, sort of, was Babybug.  They actually both loved it but I had an agenda that they could've cared less about.  I was hoping it was something Older Toad could read to younger Toad and they could enjoy it together.  Instead Older Toad read them to himself and I'd read them to younger Toad over and over as bedtime reading.  I like the magazine but I'd really rather read something along the lines of Goodnight Moon over and over.  So I thought we'd try again when younger Toad is an emergent reader.

Magazine Literacy is an organization who distributes  magazines to needy families to promote literacy and they're interested in your back issues.

The International Reading Association is one of the participants.  Here's their parents section.

What do you love to get in the mail?



*If you click on the Zoobooks link and subscribe I will get a small commission that goes towards homeschooling supplies (or in this case as you can see our magazine subscriptions bill).  All other links are provided FYI and there is no relationship.

4 comments:

Kelly at Little Wonders' Days said...

Don't you just love some of these "fake" holidays?! It's always so hard for me to know what kids magazines to order. Some of them aren't cheap either. We've had luck with ASK and Highlights. Thanks for linking to AfterSchool.

toady mama said...

Thanks Kelly. I've pondered Highlights. It might make it into the list sometime.

Unknown said...

We get Zoo Books. JDaniel loves it.

April Emery said...

Funny you made the comment you did about Nat Geo Kids. I feel the same. I think National Geographic Little Kids is actually a much better publication for children. Have you ever looked at that one?

Thanks for linking up at the Happy Hello! Hope you come back again!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...