In your blog today you said you used the Magic Treehouse books with you son in the 1st grade. My son is in 1st grade, we are new to homeschooling and I am trying to find something interesting to use for History. Can you tell me what you were doing in addition to reading the books to him? When we have read them in the past they definitely have been a conversation starter so I know they can be expounded upon but were you doing more than that?
With my older son we used the Magic Treehouse books as a jumping off point for a weekly Unit Study. Each week we would read one of the books and then we would also read all the books on the same topic we could find at the library. We also incorporated any field trips that related into the week. So say we were reading the Dinaosaur one we would read the book, read other books we could find on Dinosaurs, do dinosaur crafts and go to the Natural History Museum.
Now that we know about lapbooks I would totally incorporate a lapbook for any or all of the topics. We have done a few lapbooks based on MTH books. (Dinosaurs, Civil War, and Middle Ages were all based around MTH books.) So, since there is a good chance I will be doing these books again in a couple years with my youngest I plan on doing some lapbooks with him too. (As a matter of fact I have been working on some MTH templates for lapbooks like the ones for the American Girl books. But, I haven't gotten them done because I don't need them for a few years yet.)
Another thing you could do is have a Magic Treehouse Club. A friend of ours in Las Vegas has her son in a book club based on the books. I haven't heard all the details, but I am thinking it is probably similar to the American Girl Club I am starting for my daughter. I think this is something I might have to do in a couple years with my youngest. We could discuss the book, do crafts on the topic, do worksheets, etc. It sounds like a lot of fun!
So is how I would teach with this series. Hopefully others will leave some great comments with even more ideas for both of us!
This site (http://www.mce.k12tn.net/units/units_with_books.htm) has some great ideas to use with MTH books. Using their ideas for activities to go with Vacation Under the Volcano (http://alexml.blogspot.com/search?q=vacation+under+the+volcano) was probably one of our favorite studies EVER!
My daughter just found a new series of books. Well new to us. She has read all the Magic Tree House and wanted more.
This series is called Time Spies., by Candice Ransom.
We are studying the American Revolution and this book came up when we entered that in the library computer.
It is The Secret In The Tower, A Tale of the Am. Rev.
Have you heard of this series?
There is one on dinosaurs, Chicagos' World Fair, Civil War, Gold Rush, War of 1812 and a few others.
If anyone has read them, I would like to know what you think of them. We have started the AM Rev. one just today.
Curious in Missouri
We have homeschooled our children from the start and we love every minute of it! This is my place to share my thoughts on homeschooling, my kids and living for the Lord. All the while being a little outside the box!!
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