Have you seen The Week Junior? I started seeing it pop up on my social media feeds last year, quickly ordered it for my own kids (whom I was homeschooling at the time), and fell in love with the rich content, the timely news articles, and the full-color pictures throughout. I am always looking for magazines for kids that they will love, and I’m not exaggerating when I say it was the best thing I added to my library last year!

I’ve had the opportunity to use The Week Junior in my classroom, and I’m thrilled to share a few of the ways I’ve used it! You can also order a classroom subscription for just $1.29 per copy – that’s 78% off the cover price – by clicking HERE!

What is The Week Junior?

The Week Junior is a 32-page, full-color magazine for children ages 8-14. A new magazine arrives each week. It covers timely topics, including national and international news, sports and technology features, and more. It’s completely unbiased (I LOVE this aspect when incorporating it into my classroom) and incredibly high interest for my students. Of course, it also includes puzzles, book and movie reviews, pictures, and more. It’s truly a magazine written for the curious child in all of us… I have to confess that I read every issue cover to cover!

Using The Week Junior In the Classroom

I have had a blast exploring all the ways I can incorporate The Week Junior into my classroom this year. Here are a few ways I’ve used it:

✨Multiple Sources – I have been collecting the magazines for over a year now, and they have covered a plethora of topics, so I am always pulling them out as research sources.

✨Source Evaluation (Evaluation Bias, Multiple Perspectives) – The Week Junior is great about addressing both sides of an issue. It is also a totally unbiased news source, which makes it great for teaching about source bias (or lack thereof). 

✨Vocabulary and Context Clues – The magazine does an exceptional job of addressing unknown vocabulary words, so I have used many of the articles to demonstrate how to use context clues. 

✨Text Structures & Text Features – I made an entire anchor chart for identifying text features using one of the editions. It is filled with full-color text features.

✨Writing Summaries – The main articles are written in a way that makes them very accessible for summary writing. I give students 5-10 minutes to skim and find the article they want to summarize. They love that choice component!

✨Current Events Close Reads  – We cut out an article and glue it onto a piece of notebook paper and annotate, highlight, and take notes in the margins. Zero prep on my part, but it’s super impactful since it’s always so high-interest and timely!

✨Nonfiction Fluency Practice – Having students orally read the articles is a great way to incorporate authentic reading fluency practice.

✨Main Idea and Key Details Practice – If you’re looking for a quick way to review main idea and details, the articles are perfect. Grab a graphing organizer and select one of the lengthier articles for more of a challenge. This is also a great time to cover up the title and have students read the article and rewrite the title to practice generating the main idea.

Weekly Teacher’s Guide Included

Teacher’s Guide Included: When you order a classroom or school subscription of The Week Junior, you will also receive a weekly Teacher’s Guide featuring easy-to-use lesson plans developed by educators to help you plan around the weekly news content in The Week Junior. 

Order The Week Junior

Order The Week Junior for your classroom now. Teachers/Schools can subscribe for just $1.29 per copy, a savings of over 78% off the single copy price of $5.99 (this includes access to both the Print & Digital edition).  Click here for more information on school subscriptions to The Week Junior!

Subscriptions are flexible. As a teacher, you can order copies for each student for as many weeks as you would like. (A minimum order of 6 copies for 6 weeks is required.)

Special free gift for teachers

Teachers will receive a free tote bag if they place a classroom subscription order from now through January 31st.  The free canvas tote bag is perfect for carrying books to school.