This week we were sent the a brand new magazine to review from the one and only ‘Hey Duggee‘ of CBeebies fame. The show, which Jimmy is really rather fond of (it’s aimed at ages 3-5) is based around the Squirrel Club which is a bit like Rainbows/Brownies and Cubs in the sense that all the little characters work towards gaining badges for their accomplishments. It’s really very sweet and as each epsode teaches a new skill to the audience as the children learn it’s definitely an educational one too.

I expected then, that the magazine would also be full of exciting adventures, hugs from ‘Hey Dugge’ and Duggee badges. I wasn’t far wrong and in this, the very first issue which is out on 21st October 2015, the skill the whole magazine revolves around is cooking. From the free gift of a chef’s hat and play utensils as well as a ‘Hey Duggee’ cookie cutter the theme runs all the way through it encorporating lots of skills and challenges from drawing, colouring, games, stories and lots more!

The magazine says its focus is on 7 areas of learning: Feeling good, expressive arts and design, maths, literacy, communucation and language, finding out and let’s move. We found lots of really interesting ways that they have used these core areas like road tracks to trace you finger around to get to certain stops and then matching colours and patterns with stickers. We also thought the badges which say ‘hey you’ and encourage the reader to try somethig fun at home were very inspiring and much more educational than lots of magazines which have badges like this but are simply for running your iPad over in order to gain something interactive. Children spend so much time on line that it’s great to have encouragement to do something that isn’t digital. As with most magazines this one comes with a booklet of stickers to be used throughout it. Unlike other magazines this one’s stickers are not stapled into the middle. I find that so irritating, especially for little ones because how can you be expected to flick from one page to the stickers all the time. This is much more sensible as having the stickers on a separate pull out meant we could keep it on the page we were stickering and have the stickers to look at and choose from all the time.

We really enjoyed the stories and little tasks which Jimmy was very good at and took very seriously. He is not usually into anything arty and crafty and picking up a pen is not his thing but he really did enjoy tracing over the letters and matching up pictures in this. I also noted that usually we can work through a magazine in half an hour or so but this one took us a number of sittings and considerably longer. More to think about and engage with I think!

One of the suggestions to do at home this month is to make some ‘Hey Duggee’ cookies with a recipe inside the magazine and using the cookie cutter on the front. We thought we’d give it a whirl!

I think all in all this is a magazine with lots of value and well worth the £2.75 price tag. I buy magazines for Florence sometimes which have considerably less content and are mainly fluff for more money. She is often lured by the free gift on the front which Jimmy is too but at least with this one there is something to keep and use again in the cookie cutter. Jimmy loved the magazine and gave it the thumbs up!

We were asked to write an honest review of the new ‘Hey Duggee’ magazine.

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