Nick Jr. Magazine---The Gift That Keeps On Giving

My children really do not need any new toys this year for Christmas, it seems we already live in our own miniature toy store. I got to thinking about what I would like them to have and I decided that Nick Jr. Magazine would be the perfect gift.

I had seen the ads for Nick Jr. Magazine on Nickelodeon many times. Several times I had looked into ordering a subscription but the price always prevented me from ordering. That's when I decided it would be the perfect gift from Grandma for Christmas.

Price
Nick Jr. Magazine sells for $2.95 in stores. You can order a subscription either online or from one of the cards you find in the magazine.

You can order 12 issues for $2.00 each + 2 bonus issues for $24.00. You can also get a 6 issue subscription for $2.75/issue or $16.50 total with 1 bonus issue.

I like the idea of subscribing so that my daughters can get the magazine in the mail. Nick Jr. is published bi-monthly.

The Features
Nick Jr. Magazine is filled with lots of great features for kids and parents.

•Do-Together
This section has lots of great ideas for things you can do with your child. With a lot of parenting magazines the crafts and activities are too complex for younger children. This is not the case with Nick Jr. Magazine. The recipes, crafts, and other activities are all geared for pre-school to young school aged children.

Some of the fun things we have found are fun crafts with sea shells (making puppets, cards or just painting the seashells and making fun thins), making treasure maps, making meals out of soup, reading together, things you can make with pinecones, and many others.

Some issues come with pages that have areas your child can paint pictures or practice writing on. These are great for tearing out of the magazine and hanging on the fridge or mailing to Grandma and Grandpa.

•Grown-Ups
This feature is great for parents. It has lots of articles on parenting and things like that. There are birthday party ideas, parenting resources, recipes, kids art photos, quotes and other fun things sent in by other parents. There are quite a few helpful things in each issue for parents.

•Just for Kids
Each issue contains a special bonus pullout magazine called Noodle. Noodle is perfect for pre-schoolers. I love this feature because while my older daughter and I do some of the things my youngest can't do, she can be flipping through this little magazine.

Noodle features some of their favorite characters from the Nick Jr. line-up. Your child can flip through the pages in search of "Blues Clues" and then write them in the handy dandy notebook that comes with each issue. Some issues include stickers to play with, games to play, and stories to read.

One feature that I really like is the stories. They frequently have pictures in the magazine and the children are encouraged to look at the pictures and tell the story themselves. This really helps with their development and promotes a love of reading.

There are crafts the children can do and a place to color a picture.

More Thoughts
I really enjoy Nick Jr. Magazine. It is a well thought out, well put together, educational and fun magazine.

Nick Jr. Magazine is published bi-monthly and has around 80-100 pages each issue (give or take a few). The pages are thick (so they don't rip too easily when little hands get ahold of them) and they are full color pages.

The magazine contains advertisements, all of which are appropriate for children.

There is a very helpful table of contents that lists the articles by the main features--Grown-Ups, Just for Kids , and Do-Together. Each article also has symbols to help identify what Play-to-Learn fundamentals are being taught. The Play-to-Learn fundamentals are Social, Cognitive, Problem Solving, Physical, and Creative. Each issue has a balanced mix of these fundamentals.

I highly recommend Nick Jr. Magazine. Grandma is getting this for my daughters for Christmas and I know I am thankful. This is something we will be able to do together, it's one less toy to trip over, and my daughters are going to love getting their own magazine in the mail very other month.

I purchased this magazine at Barnes and Nobles a few times before deciding it was perfect for us. You can do the same but I recommend a subscription if you like the magazine since it is much cheaper.