The Adventures of Abney & Teal (issue 1)

If you have a pre-schooler in the family, I am sure you buy lots of CBeebies magazines like Peppa Pig, In the Night Garden, Octonauts, Tree Fu Tom and many more. My younger son Eddie loves these magazines, and most of the time when we go shopping together, we end up buying a magazine or two. Whenever my husband groans "Not another magazine!", I try to justify the purchase, saying they are educational. If like Eddie and I you find the appeal of CBeebies magazines irresistible, you will be excited to know that Abney & Teal now have a magazine of their own.

Abney & Teal are popular among preschoolers for their lovely gentle stories, with mild humour and old-fashioned charm (and I use "old-fashioned" here as a compliment and a synonym for retro, because the animation's pace and soothing stories are reminiscent of the TV programmes which we have enjoyed as children).
We were lucky to receive a preview copy of The Adventures of Abney & Teal, which is out this week. Eddie was very happy to read a new magazine.

The first issue comes with free toys, a guitar and a recorder, which I must say Eddie was more enthusiastic about than me.

The magazine is created along the same lines, as the other CBeebies magazines: there are stories to read, colouring pages and puzzles to complete, lots of stickers and a competition to enter. Eddie enjoyed listening to the Rock music story. There are questions at the end of the stories, which help you to find out how much your child can remember, as well as questions leading to a discussion, for example, about your child's favourite musical instruments.

Then there is an Abney & Teal's Reward Chart for 4 weeks, which invites your little one to learn a new song or draw a picture for someone special. Each day has a different task, and you can use star stickers to mark the completed tasks on the chart.

There are colouring pages. Who doesn't like colouring?! Always great for quiet evening activities or a rainy day.

Eddie was happy to go through a counting workbook and help Abney & Teal work out what's big and small (in fact they're just going through these concepts in school - bigger/smaller, lighter/heavier etc). As my son is learning to write his numbers and letters, he relishes simple tasks like tracing the numbers and letters.
The magazine costs £2.99, and would appeal to all fans of Abney & Teal, big or small.

Disclosure: we received a preview copy of the magazine for the purposes of reviewing. All opinions are mine.