Creative Steps Magazine

You know that feeling you get when you find something that you just completely “get” straight away? When a smile spreads across your face and you just can’t stop it? Where the more you discover the more you smile? Well that’s exactly what happened when I discovered Creative Steps magazine.

Aimed at anyone who has anything to do with children, Creative Steps is just packed full of inspiration, project ideas, reviews and useful tips. Whether you be a teacher, nursery assistant, Guide or Brownie leader, nanny, childminder, parent or grandparent then this is the magazine for you.

Each edition (4 a year) is split into three age ranges (0-5, 5-7 and 7-11 years) and for each group there are instructions for things that you can make along with a clear list of what you need in the store cupboard to be able to do so. For some of the projects relevant activities based around what you have made are also suggested, along with tips about how to adapt things if you have a group of children of different ages. Little Miss C and I have had great fun so far making both hedgehogs and chicks from the Spring 2012 edition. The Reading Corner pages (again split into the three age ranges) contain reviews of new books and are an ideal starting place for if you are looking for new reads for your little ones.

Since finding Creative Steps I have to say that it has made me think much more carefully about the craft activities that I do with Little Miss C. Yes, sometimes just having out crayons and pens and drawing free-form is the right thing to do, but at other times it’s good to make a specific thing (like a hedgehog for example) and then talk a bit about what you’ve made, possibly play some games involving it, and if relevant reading together a book about something similar. This model now works really well for us and stops that slightly low patch that you can get with children when you’ve made something and then they want to know what to do next.

I’m definitely going to be subscribing to Creative Steps as I can clearly see just how useful it will be with a couple of children in the house. The lovely people behind the magazine also have two great offers in store for my readers. Firstly they are offering an amazing 25% off a year’s subscription (either paper or digital) – all you need to go is go here or enter the code BMRSC25 on their website. The second thing is that one lucky UK reader can also win a year’s subscription to the print edition (usually costing £29.80 inc P&P). And if all that’s not enough as an added bonus, anyone who susbcribes in June or July will also receive a free sample block of FIMOair modelling clay (as used in the picnic food project on pages 62-64 of the new Summer edition).

To be in with a chance of winning this subscription all you need to do is leave a comment below.

Please ensure that I can contact you by either entering your email address when you leave the comment (it will not be published online) or include your Twitter ID in your comment. Entries without contact details will be invalid.

Please note that this competition is now CLOSED. Many thanks for your entries and I’m delighted to tell you that the winner is Charlotte. I will be in touch for your postal address.

Terms and Conditions 

• Competition will run until 5pm BST on Thursday 21 June 2012.
• The winner will be drawn at random from all valid entries.
• All reasonable efforts will be made to contact the winner, but if they are un-contactable after 5 working days a second winner will be drawn.
• The competition is open to all residents of the United Kingdom.
• There is no cash alternative to the prize.
• The prize will be posted out directly by Creative Steps magazine.

Disclaimer: I was sent a couple of copies of Creative Steps magazine to review. Creative Steps have also supplied the subscription discount code and the prize of one year’s UK print subscription to the magazine.