Sunday 10 October 2010

Magic Tree House Series - Ideal starting points for units

I thought I'd share with you one of our favorite all time authors, Mary Pope Osborne.  Her Magic Tree House and Merlin Mission series of books are utterly inspiring.  Our first experience with them was Night of the Ninjas...not a very educational book at first glance from the title you may think, well, we were in for a treat!  Jack and Annie, the brother and sister duo who are the main characters, get whisked back in time to ancient Japan.  In order to get back home they have to learn the secrets of the Ninjas whilst dodging the samurai warriors.

A captivating read, which could quite easily be used during lesson plans on ancient Japan.  We've since gone on to read Good Morning, Gorillas, Season of the Sandstorms and Christmas in Camelot.  Our current read out of the Magic Tree House series is Vacation under the Volcano, which I intend to expand on with a project on Volcanos and a science volcano experiment is also on the list :) 

We've also got Twister on Tuesday and Thanksgiving on Thursday on our bookshelf ready for another time. The series travels through time and touches subjects such as History and Mythology, whilst keeping the readers hooked.

Some great resources for using alongside the Magic Tree House books can be found at http://www.gearforlearning.com/ and http://www.currclick.com another site with some good info on them and how to use them is here - http://helpmyhomeschool.com 

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