Age: 7+

I am only reviewing the magazines in this review and didn’t review any of the toys and other workbooks that usually come with the set. I bought a set of these magazines “used” and I am using them as just readers in the household instead of utilizing their usual monthly toys. If you know me, you know I don’t like waiting so I bought a whole year’s worth of magazines only and didn’t get any of the toys or workbooks that came with it. If I do come across some workbooks, I’ll update with a later post.

I bought the first grade level magazines by Qiao Hu because I was curious to see if my kids would like these magazines and it turned out to be a hit for them. It has a mixture of different activities and stories inside. There’s always a science section, experiment section, comics section, story section, and also a brain exercise. Each month there’s a different topic. The topics I have shown above include insects as well as how your toilet works. The one with the toilet also has another topic that month which is how to save money.

The story section of each magazine will have a 2000 word count story (approximate) that relates to the month’s topic. In the above magazine, it included a story of a boy who grew up in a poor family. The mom works afar and mails back money to the family. His father is sick and his grandpa tries to make some extra money from doing woodwork. One day, his grandpa accidentally broke his glasses while doing carpentry and the boy felt sad. He saw his grandpa working so hard in order to buy him a reading light for his studies.

With this, the boy decided to save a bit of money each day by not eating a snack to save up for a pair of new glasses for his grandpa. When he felt he had enough, he went to the store and found out what he saved wasn’t enough yet. At the store, he met a nice grandma who learned about the boy’s situation and she wanted to help out. She asked him to come and read to her everyday and she’ll pay him a little money for his reading. He went daily and in the end, saved enough for grandpa’s new glasses.

The story ended with him continually reading to that grandma to save more money because he has now developed a money saving “habit”…

Quite sweet right?

Anyway, it was a great set of “healthy” magazines and my kids liked it. There are other magazines out there with the same sort of set up. I will be scouting for these as well and review those when I get them.