Your Big Backyard magazine, bugs, pigs, and other creatures your child will love

My father got this subscription for my almost four year old about a year ago for her third birthday. We don’t have any animals, but she is quite an animal lover, and she looks forward to this magazine every month. He’s since renewed it for her fourth upcoming birthday and I can’t wait to tell her.

Your Big Backyard magazine is about thirty pages packed full of lots of pictures, learning, reading, puzzles, and did I mention pictures?

Pictures, pictures, and more pictures

Let me first tell you about the illustrations. They are unbelievable, you can see every muddy hair on the pig, every detail on the bunch of ladybugs huddled together, you can even see almost every sharp tooth on a dolphin swimming in the water. The pictures just jump out at you and pull you in. My daughter’s mouth hangs open in amazement as she thumbs through Your Big Backyard magazine.

What’s in it

There is a table of contents at the front that tells you exactly what’s in it. Every single month there tons of new information on several selected animals. Like this past month it talked about pigs rolling in mud, bats seeking bugs, horseshoe crabs, dogs and dolphins.

The first section introduces you to a new animal. This month it introduced three different types of pigs, a wild boar, red river hog, and a bearded pig. It tells you where they live, how they got their name, and of course shows a great picture of each one.

The next section gives you different facts about that featured animal. For instance, pigs can run really fast even though they have stubby legs. Pigs don’t “pig out”, they just stop eating when they’re full. Pigs go in mud to cool off, not because they want to get dirty.

The third section is a matching game. My almost four year isn’t too good at this yet, but maybe next year. It gives a description of one of the kind of pigs and you have to match it up to the picture. The next page you can draw your own. It starts off the animal with basic shapes. For the pig, it starts out with one large oval and one small circle for the head you your child has to do the rest. My daughter usually just scribbles inside and maybe puts a couple of legs on the animal.

The next section is one of my daughter’s favorites. It’s a read along story called “The Adventures of Bonnie and Chester”. She can read along with me because sometimes pictures stand in for words. So, when I come to a picture of Bonnie, she knows that word is Bonnie. If it shows a picture of a beach, she can fill in the word for me. This month they were searching for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

And next, is a page you can tear out and fold up to make up your own little storybook. It’s really cute because it’s a simple little story that your child can walk around with and probably memorize almost immediately. This one was a story about the animals living in a marsh.

The next page talks about if you ever wondered why a dog panted. It shows a big picture of a dog panting and has a little caption in a yellow circle explaining why a dog pants. By the way, a dog pants because he doesn’t sweat if you were wondering!

The following two pages show pictures of a bunch of Your Big Backyard magazine, readers with their animals. It’s really adorable and my daughter gets a kick out of it and always asks if I can take a picture of her and her stuffed kitty so I can send it in.

The next two pages is a poster you can rip out and your child can hang up or do whatever with.

The next few pages talks about mud. Which animals like mud, if you like mud.

Next to last is another story always with the same basic characters from “Olive and Max’s backyard”. This one talks about Olive’s encounter with a bat. On the right side it states some basic facts about a bat. This is my daughter’s second favorite part of the magazine. She loves me to read her stories.

Lastly, it’s family fun time. Your Big Backyard magazine gives some fun recipes, good books to read, songs to sing, projects to do together, and a maze to wander through.

On the back cover of this month was a picture of a dog catching a Frisbee and a caption saying, “Catcha later!”

How to get Your Big Backyard magazine

Send check or money order for $19.95 per 12 issues to: Your Big Backyard, PO Box 2038, Harlan, IA 51593-0017. You can also call 1800-611-1599. This is published by the National Wildlife Federation at www.nwf.org.

So, are you hooked yet? I know I am. Go get it for your three to eight year old. They’ll thank you for it. I think it’s adorable, beautiful, informative, interesting, and you need to get it. Really.