MUFFIN.MAGAZINE
Vol. III · No. 7 Aotearoa New Zealand Winter Edition 2026

Muffin Magazine

A homeschool publication for kids who don't fit the mould.

Made by homeschool teens, for homeschool teens — and the families who put up with us. Every issue is written, drawn, argued over and proof-read by kids who learn at the kitchen table, on the marae, halfway up a mountain, or wherever the day takes them. You're not here to read what we made. You're here to help make the next one.

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By the readers, for the readers

Help shape the next issue

No accounts, no logins, no fuss. Tell us what you'd actually read — the busiest topics make the cover, and the best ideas get your name in print.

✶ This edition's topics ✶

Politics

Should under-16s get a real say? We're putting the voting-age debate to the people it's actually about.

412 votes0%

Environment

Backyard conservation, kuaka migrations, and the kids replanting their own slice of bush. Yes or no?

588 votes0%

Music & Making

Bedroom producers, brass bands, and the homeschool kid who built a guitar from a fence post. Worth a feature?

503 votes0%
✶ Got a better idea?

Pitch us your story

A feature you wish existed, a person we should meet, a question nobody's answering for kids like us. Big or small, half-baked or fully formed — send it through.

If we run your idea, we'll credit you by name in the magazine — unless you'd rather we didn't. Your call, always.

Got it — thank you! Keep an eye on the next issue.

✶ Recently pitched
  • "A map of every free thing to do in your region these holidays." — Te Awamutu
  • "What homeschoolers wish their grandparents understood." — Anonymous
  • "A whole issue where teens interview teens, no adults allowed." — Ōtautahi
  • "How to start a zine with zero budget." — Nelson
Community spotlight

This month's muffin

Every issue we put one reader in the spotlight — someone making something, learning something, or just being unmistakably themselves.

Photographed at home · Kāpiti Coast
Meet

Maia, 14

Kāpiti Coast · homeschooled since forever

Maia spends her mornings on marine biology and her afternoons running a tide-pool survey she started entirely on her own. Last summer she logged 200 species along her local beach, taught herself to identify them from library books, and now sends her data to a real research group up the coast. She did not, for the record, ask anyone's permission first.

"People assume homeschoolers are stuck inside. I've basically got a beach for a classroom."

When she's not knee-deep in a rock pool she's drawing the creatures she finds — half of which are going in our centre spread this issue. We think she's brilliant. We bet you know someone just as brilliant.

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Off the press

The latest issue

Printed on good paper, posted to your door anywhere in Aotearoa. Hold the thing you helped make.

MUFFIN M A G A Z I N E "Kids who don't fit the mould" WINTER EDITION · No. 7
Issue No. 7 · Winter 2026

The "Made by Us" Issue

56 pages. Reader interviews, a centre-spread field guide to the tide pools, the great voting-age debate, and a how-to on starting your own zine for nothing. Plus this month's muffin, and the ideas you sent in.

  • The voting-age debatep. 04
  • Maia's tide-pool field guidep. 18
  • Start a zine for $0p. 31
  • Letters & reader ideasp. 49
$12.00 Buy a copy → Free postage NZ-wide · or read at your local library
About

Who's behind it

Muffin Magazine is a not-for-profit print magazine written, edited and illustrated by homeschooled teenagers across Aotearoa. No corporate backers, no algorithm, no grown-up telling us what teens are "into". Just kids who don't fit the mould, making something for kids who don't fit the mould.