Give the gift that gives throughout the year! Today, there is an amazing selection of high-quality magazines for children (many with accompanying online content for subscribers) with all sorts of interests. Shopping is as easy as a phone call or an online subscription, and the kiddos will get a new gift in the mail all year round.
Here is a round up of magazines I found out there…
Magazine Picks For Foodie Kids
Chop Chop: the Fun Cooking Magazine for Kids This magazine, with technical review and endorsement provided by the American Academy of Pediatrics, is on a mission to inspire and teach kids to cook and eat real food with their families. Colorful pictures of food and kids cooking and lots of step-by-step detail for mini chefs to cook alongside their favorite grown ups. Recipes in the latest issue include egg quesadillas, roasted chickpeas and pretty purple grape sparklers. IT Mom’s Take: Lots of content per issue. I tried to read through alone the night before so I could guide my 6 year old through the recipes and articles. My new reader could read headlines, but not much more. I liked the healthy recipes to add to spice up our everyday menu.
Ingredient Bimonthly magazine for kids curious about food. Written for kids ages 6 and up, issues are divided into three sections – Cook, Learn and Do. Recent features include snack mix recipe, techniques on how to measure dry ingredients, a fun food field trip to an orchar
d and how to set a proper table. IT Mom’s Take: Very well edited and graphically clean magazine with great photography that inspires me to work food activities into our week. Unlike many other kids’ food magazines, this one offers some easier to read content – headlines and factoid bubbles that my first grader can read.
Yum for Kids A fun food and craft magazine to inspire kids and their grown ups to create fun tables for every season. The Winter issue has 57 Christmas recipes. Tips on the hottest new food and cooking tools in the marketplace. And the crafts are easy and inexpensive, such as marshmallow snowmen adorned with mini M&Ms faces, pretzel stick arms and set up on chocolate bar sleighs. IT Mom’s Take: This magazine seems to be written for an adult audience looking for cooking foods for their children and seeking seasonal craft projects. The layout, text and recipe difficulty is not focused on a young audience. My daughter enjoyed looking at all the photos and picking out which foods and crafts she wanted to do. There are two or more photos on each page so it is easy to navigate with your children. There are ads and product reviews in this magazine.
Magazine Picks For Science & Animal Loving Kids
Click From the publisher of Cricket Magazine, this pub is for kids ages 4-6 years old. Each issue focuses on one topic and features comic strip style illustrated stories, photos, features and a game. The September issue’s topic was working on a farm. There were a step by step pictorial stories on where wool comes from, what happens on a goat farm and how farm machinery works on a corn field. IT Mom’s Take: Click is appealing to both my 6 year old daughter and 4 year old son. The stories are perfect for early readers and the content is very well thought out for a young audience. The illustrations and photography for all the Cricket family publications are amazing.
Ask Also from Cricket family, this is an arts and sciences magazine for kids ages 6-9. The Nov/Dec issue focused on animals sounding off. Features 
included why birds sing and the noisy ocean. IT Mom’s Take: Ask is a magazine that 6-9 year old (or even older kids) can read independently or with a parent. The issue on animal sounds is packed with great, entertaining information – there is a cool two-page spread which features illustrated animals each with voice bubbles listing all the animal sounds that each language hears differently. Cats say Meow (english), Nyah-nyah (Japanese), Miyav (Turkish) and Mjau (Swedish).
National Geographic Kids or National Geographic Little Kids Both magazines feature tons of animal photography, many of the photos are funny and sent in by readers. Factoids about animals and the environment are featured in colorful bubble formatting. The Little Kids version is a smaller sized magazine with larger fonts and shorter sentences. Also feature activities, such as Close Up photographs with scrambled lettered subtitles – unscramble the letters and identify what is in the picture. IT Mom’s Take: Not as heavy on content as the adult versions the kids-focused National Geographic uses lots of funny photography, weird but true and outrageous fun facts. The Little Kids version had a super cool step-by-step instructions on building an igloo and sorting/matching games in the Nov/Dec issue.
Magazines Picks For Kids That Love Puzzles, Jokes and Word Games
Highlights or High Five According to their publishers, their mission is to offer a magazine of wholesome fun dedicated to helping children grow in basic skills and knowledge, in creativeness, in ability to think and reason, in sensitivity to others, in high ideals and worthy ways of living – for children are the world’s most important people. This monthly magazine has three editions – Highlights Hello for ages 0-2, High Five for ages 2-6 and Highlights for ages 6-12. IT Mom’s Take: Exactly as I remember it as a kid, the hidden object puzzles and “What’s Wrong?” in this picture activities keep my daughter and son entertained on our bus trips home from school. I really enjoy reading the poetry to my kids. The accompanying artwork is beautiful and seems much better than the 70’s versions I remember from my youth. A “new to me” section called Gallant Kids features a true life story on an inspiring kid. In December, this section featured a boy who gives less fortunate kids gifts at Christmas. And my 10 month old has been chewing happily on his indestructable, sewn bound issue of Highlights Hello much to the delight of his older siblings.
Magazines Picks For For Kids that Love to Read
Ladybug, Cricket and Spider – All three magazines are published by Carus Publishing. LADYBUG (ages 4-6) offers 40 pages of enchanting stories and poems to read aloud that are just the right length for a cozy cuddle. SPIDER (ages 6-9) is filled with fun stories, poems, and activities, specially designed for newly independent readers. Each issue’s 40 full-color pages feature bright, detailed illustrations by famous children’s artists. CRICKET (ages 9-14) ublishes only the highest quality fiction and classic literature and nonfiction stories on culture, history, science, and the arts. Each 48-page issue includes a story, poetry, or art contest, as well as the signature cast of rambunctious bug characters who offer humorous commentary on the stories. IT Mom’s Take: These magazines are on my holiday wishlist for my kids! Love, love, love ’em. Strong writing and art work I want to frame and hang in the kids’ room. In October, Ladybug featured the lyrics to a traditional children song about evening coming and you can log on to their accompanying website to sing along with the music. Spider featured a poem about sloths written completely upside down mirroring the sloths favorite position hanging off branches. And Cricket features creepy, suspenseful Halloween stories and sponsors a kids writing contest.
Magazines Picks For Kids Curious About the World
Appleseeds Geared toward kids ages 6-9, each 36-page issue of APPLESEEDS focuses on one cultural or historical topic and explores it with a unique you-are-there perspective that children love. IT Mom’s Take: The September issue focused on the Age of Exploration. My 
daughter loved reading and dissecting the detailed cartoon drawings and text bubbles for Christopher Columbus’ Santa Maria. Her interest was definitely peaked by a summertime visit to a replica for Columbus’ ships and this was right up her alley.
Faces For ages 9-14, a look at your world, your voice, your FACES. FACES takes young readers around the world and back to get an honest and unbiased view of how children in other countries and world regions live. IT Mom’s Take: Inspiring articles that give kids a real take on the people, places and cultures that make up the world they live in. What better way to raised gracious, education citizens? The Nov/Dec issue focused on religion. My favorite article was on food and faith. What do we people of different faiths eat to celebrate? What foods do certain faiths forbid and why? So very interesting!
Magazines for Girls
American Girl Magazine, For girls ages 7 and up, is a fantastic assortment of games, puzzles, crafts, letters, tips, recipes, and stories of girls sure to inspire every girl who gets her hands on the magazine. IT Mom’s Take: This is an absolutely fantastic magazine for girls who have a creative flair, or for girls looking for a little guidance to help them find their inner Martha Stewart! The crafts are well detailed with plenty of pictures for girls to end up with some super-cute end results. The “Letters” touch on real-life situations and I’ve found the responses to be pretty accurate along the lines that I might suggest to my own girls. Personally, I love the articles featuring empowered American girls – they show how kids really can make a difference and that taking a risk to try something new can result in a wonderfully positive experience. – Erin
Hope this helps your shopping! Happy Reading in 2013!
That’s IT Mommy, Jill
