Loving grandparents have been subscribing to new magazines for our daughter. We have been buying her (she's now 7) back issues of Highlights and Cricket magazines since she could read. Back issues from the 90's, 80's, and 70s (oh and even some Jack and Jill magazines from the 1960s). They are treasures.
We are raising our daughter virtually screen-free. No TV, no tablets, a 90s-style desktop PC in the back room, and she doesn't use our cell phones for anything. Due to these choices, she lives in a world that seems very much like 1998 or earlier. What did kids do back in those days?
Due to the magazines (and some of our memories :D ) we know. It is so nice to have magazines full of
actual articles which she can read about useful and interesting things in (new magazines have so little text it is
shocking to compare them), and pages full of craft-projects and game ideas that are loads of fun and use simple, easy-to-obtain elements like construction paper, old bottles, etc. And the illustrations in the 70s and 80s were often exquisite--I stare and stare at them over Miss G's shoulder. Computers can't manage what I see there!
Today she asked me to make photocopies on cardstock of a set of tangrams to cut out and play with together. It was a very enjoyable time, and there is so much like that in each issue.
There were different ways of thinking and doing before there were screens to plug kids into. If you have maybe forgotten just how wonderful the wide world is for kids, unmediated and raw, back issues of magazines will show you fun things to do together and think about. Low tech retro fun together is really good living!
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