Reading Fun Time with The Magic Tree House

I'm sure I am like other moms who would rather see her children read a good book instead of sitting in front of a T.V all day. Since  Minnie(me) and Super Boy are at a great age to instil this, I try my hardest to make reading more fun. I do this by finding books that really get their attention and also apply some fun activities to go with the story.

I may be a little behind, but the kids and I have discovered The Magic Tree House books by Mary Pope Osborne. They are great books about a brother and sister who find a magic tree house and go on these wonderful adventures together. I thought this would be great because the kids can see themselves going on these adventures themselves.  Anything to boost their imaginations right?

The books are only about 10 chapters, which I love because we read about 2 chapters a day. The kids take turns by each reading a page and then after the chapter, we do a little review about what they just read. We do this out loud so that I can help them if needed and the other child knows what is going on in the story as well.

Last week we finished the first book called "Dinosaurs Before Dark." The kids loved it! Super Boy really enjoyed it because he loves dinosaurs!

 After we finished each chapter, the kids had to answer questions about what they just read. They had a Magic Tree House folder where they kept all the activities that we did that went along with the book.  After we finished the book, they also had to complete a lap book. This required some research from some dinosaur books we have. It was great to see them work together and also help each other if there was a hard question.

Since they are still a little young for book reports, I had them do a bag report.  They had some questions they had to answer about the story, draw some pictures of things that happened in the story, and then collect items that reminded them of the story. Since they read about dinosaurs, they put in some dinosaur toys in their bags. They also put in some plastic eggs because the characters in the story came across a dinosaur nest. They also put some sticks in their bags to remind them of the tree house. They put some other neat things in there too!

For our special snack, we made Duck-Bill dinosaurs nests.  They're so easy to make! 

First you melt some peanut butter.

When it's all melted and creamy, you add some pretzels sticks. Stir to make sure that the pretzels sticks are all well coated.

They take clumps and put it on parchment paper to cool. 

When cooled, add candy eggs or jelly beans to look like dino eggs.  Then enjoy!  They were a hit with the kids!

 

Today we just began reading book #2 A Knight At Dawn.  We'll be finished with it on Friday and then we're looking forward to reading more from this fun series!

Next Year Preps!

Well, the kids and I are counting the days down till the last day of school. ( 6 more days!!!!)   It's been a great year, but this Mama needs a break! 

As another school year is coming to an end, I am beginning to prep for next year. It's true, I never stop!

There are a couple of things that we will be adding for the next school year. For beginners, we have joined a co-op.  We're really looking forward to beginning this new adventure and making new, life long friends.  We're kind of ahead of the game because we already know a couple families there.  I have been looking into co-ops and this one seems to fit what we needed! I am praying that all goes well!  I will be posting more about the classes and how it's going, but that will be AFTER summer!

I am also jumping on the work box bandwagon.  I thought they were more for larger families, which they might be, but I thought with all the changes coming up, this would help us to stay on track and even be a little more organized! Nothing wrong with that right?  I made up some cute work box things for the kids to help them stay on top of their work.  Minnie(me) will be using American Girl tabs to help her and Super Boy will be using Transformer tabs. I thought they would enjoy it better if they incorporated something that they both loved! For the subjects, I used some cute clip art to help the kids know which subject was coming up.  Hopefully this works!  Right now I am in the prepping stages and going to be doing a lot of thinking this through before applying it.  On paper it sounds like it will work perfectly!

Our schedule has been busy this year and I know it will only get busy, especially with our new adventure in the co-op world.  The kids have been doing swimming lessons every week (instead of our older version of when my schedule is free).  Having a place and time always set up has really helped!  The kids have also joined a homeschool Martial Arts class.  They meet twice a week and are LOVING it!  The teachers are amazing and the kids in their class are the sweetest bunch of kids!  This will be something they're in for awhile!

So as I count the days down, I know that my summer will still be full of getting this ready for yet another great year of homeschooling!