Eco Kids Planet is a beautifully designed science and nature magazine aimed at 7 to 11 year olds, with online resources linked to each issue available on their website. Here’s my review of four 2016 issues. Great kids reading inspiration for family outdoor adventures.

Quality Paper

The first thing I noticed is the feel of the magazines – the paper is good quality, thicker and stronger than most children’s publication  –  which means they will store well for future re-reading.

The magazine is printed using biodegradable vegetable inks on FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified paper. This means that while the paper isn’t recycled it is sourced from sustainable woodlands. This or recycled paper should be an industry standard.

I LOVE that there are no adverts in the magazines and this should also be an industry standard for all children’s magazines.

Monthly Themes

Each issue is themed, focusing on a location or season e.g. Halloween. The content is educational, fun and encourages children to love the planet and consider conservation.

There are three Eco Kids ‘reporters’, a great hook for child readers.

Charlie can talk to animals and therefore does lots of animal interviews.

chamaeleon-interview

Amy does the science, creating the puzzles, diaries, experiments and games e.g. the Slime Laboratory in an issue we reviewed.

Simon is the adventurer, travelling to discover mystical creatures and awe-inspiring nature.

General Content

As a parent and lover of nature and wildlife I can’t rate these magazines highly enough. They are bright, colourful, well laid out, not too busy like some other magazines we’ve seen and really fun and informative.

There are puzzles such as crosswords or word searches and the centre pages are a stronger paper for craft ideas, e.g. a bat puppet, buzzard mobile, world map, board game. You can collect stickers with some projects by uploading photos to Facebook.

Eco Kids Planet is for ages 7-11 and whilst I more or less agree with this range, some articles are quite long, not completely holding the attention of my 7-year old wildlife enthusiast. I’d say 7/8 year olds need to be very advanced readers for this magazine.

The quizzes and colouring pages break it up nicely with excellent illustrations and photos which aren’t too stylised.

Pros

  • Quality paper
  • Eco-friendly paper
  • Eco-friendly ink
  • No adverts
  • Educational
  • Simple eye-catching design and layout
  • Variety of content – science as well as cute and fluffy!
  • Fun
  • Interactive
  • Great themes
  • Excellent illustrations and photos
  • Gender neutral

Cons

Some articles are a little over-long for the youngest readers.

Buy a Subscription

At £3.50 for 11 issues per year (July/August is a double), the annual subscription is usually £36.

For more books and outdoor gear reviews browse Kids of the Wild’s reviews section

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 Kids of the Wild received a copy of the magazine for the purposes of review. All views and observations are my own (and Caroline’s, aged 7).