Cool New Find

       

I am always on the lookout for great books to read with the boys.  The fortunately love picking out books at the library for entertainment and information.  They are now reading to me each night, from simplistic books that are more about decoding than about the story.  I feel this is a necessary step for them to growing into readers of more complex story lines. 

And, because they love stories not, I love to read them to them to keep their imaginations and love of the story alive, while they are learning the details of reading.  We recently read Charlotte’s web together and we all loved it, but I have had three false starts since then.   So, while I was at the library the other days, I decided to flip through the pages of a Magic Tree House book.  I noticed a note written in the back “great read aloud unit studies K-3.”  Hey, that is what I was looking for. 

So, I picked up Book #1 “Dinosaurs of the Past.”   Three days later, we are done with the book and the boys loved it.  They used other books to prove points about each of the dinosaurs mentioned in the book. We talked about how dinosaurs laid eggs, which character they related to the most, and what they would do in the same situation.  I am wishing I had the time today to go ahead and pick up #2 to keep the momentum going. 

Fast forward to this morning, and I decided to look up and see if there were some good unit studies out there for the series, and I found this web site:  http://mthclassroomadventures.org/index.php?r=site/lessonplans

Wow, is all I can say!  This site has cool lesson plans, activities and extension activities for each book in the series.  This could also be a great way for parents of struggling or reluctant readers engaged throughout the summer.  If you child is already a proficient reader, they can read the books themselves and they are geared for a 2-4^th grade level I believe.    

The general theme is that a couple of kids find a tree house and in that tree house there are a ton of old books.  When they look at the book they are transported into it’s setting, and then the story centers on the setting.  From what it looks like there are all sorts of history and science themes explored throughout the series.