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About Us

Wild Animal Baby is the National Wildlife Federation's (NWF’s) nature magazine for toddlers ages 1 to 4 years.

Its mission is to introduce very young children to wildlife in ways that lay the foundation for a lifelong love of the natural world.

NWF believes that children who develop an early affinity for wildlife will continue to acquire a deeper understanding and appreciation of the natural world, and as they grow up, also will work to safe-guard wildlife and wild places.

Specially designed for lap-time reading with an adult, the magazine has sturdy, cardboard-like pages, contains no staples, and is perfectly sized (6 ¼” x 7”) to fit into small hands. In keeping with the National Wildlife Federation’s mission to protect the environment, the magazine is printed on recycled paper using non-toxic materials.

Educational Goals

An effective way to introduce wildlife to children is through lively literature and games that correspond to children’s current stages of cognitive, affective, social/emotional, and physical development. In designing developmentally appropriate material for toddlers, Wild Animal Baby has four main educational goals.

1. Introduce natural science content that focuses on the characteristics of different animals.
   
   
2. Foster emergent reading skills by helping toddlers to identify and compare attributes, develop vocabulary, have fun with language, and recognize letters and sounds.
   
   
3. Enhance children’s natural interest in mathematics by encouraging them to sort and classify things, identify shapes and patterns, and compare quantities.
   
   
4. Provide opportunities to practice gross and fine motor skills through movement, cooking, and craft activities.

Instructional Approaches

Each issue of Wild Animal Baby incorporates the following approaches to learning.

• Read-Aloud Opportunities: The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that parents begin reading aloud to children during the first three years of a child’s life to enhance intellectual potential. All Wild Animal Baby features are designed to be read aloud to children.
• Connections to Prior Knowledge: In accordance with recommendations by the National Association for the Education of Young Children, all Wild Animal Baby issues build on children’s prior knowledge by helping them make connections between experiences they have had in their everyday lives and those that exist in the larger world (e.g., learning from parents, playing with peers, communicating feelings, eating food, keeping warm).
• Multiple Levels of Information: Every feature is designed so that each time a child and adult look at it they can talk about something new. For example, illustrations for a cover story always show the animal featured in the text as well as its habitat, encouraging children and adults to draw additional conclusions about how the animal lives. And the storyline for each cover feature is open-ended, allowing children and adults to take the story a step farther, to make additional observations, and to invent their own stories. This approach encourages adults to discuss more and more information as children are ready to handle it.
• Comprehensive Learning: The magazine’s stories and activities develop cognitive, affective, social/emotional, and physical skills as well as provide fun and creative approaches to the areas of science, reading, and math.

Content Overview

You’ll find the following regular features inside Wild Animal Baby.

• Cover Story: Each four-color, 24-page issue opens with a short photographic story that introduces toddlers to a  baby animal. Engaging, step-by-step photos help youngsters to retell the story in their own words and to point to and discuss the animal’s basic characteristics and habitat.
• Interactive Rhymes and Games: Inside each issue are developmentally appropriate learning activities, such as identifying, comparing, sorting, and classifying attributes; identifying patterns; counting and comparing quantities; using fine and gross motor skills; and recognizing letters and sounds. All of these activities incorporate information about nature and are highly effective vehicles for helping young children come to know and love the natural world on levels commensurate with their understanding.
• Out-and-About Adventure: This illustrated story follows a family’s adventures in the natural world. The adventures are designed so that parents can provide similar experiences for their toddlers.
• Wild Animal Alphabet: A capital and lower-case letter of the alphabet is paired with an illustration of an animal whose name starts with that letter.

Wild Ideas to Share This parent’s page offers activities, crafts, recipes, and reading recommendations that build upon the content in each issue and further encourage a young child’s intellectual and emotional growth. These ideas also appear, along with other supplementary materials, on the Wild Animal Baby Web site.