I will be teaching third grade this year and am a new teacher. I have not yet seen my classroom (I will be in a portable!) but am trying to come up with some theme ideas to go on. I hear the Magic Tree House books are very popular with third graders and thought this would be a fun theme for them. The only things I can come up with is to try and recreate the back cover of the books- tree with the ladder coming down (create the tree out of butcher paper and buy one of those rope ladders). I thought then I could add something like "Adventure is awaiting inside". But I would also like to incorporate their names/photos on my bulletin board as well. I also thought about doing a frog theme since third grade will be studying frogs. I could then do the Magic Tree House theme maybe in our reading center nook. I'm not sure how much space I will have though. I also wondered if anyone has popular music for third grade that could be played softly during quiet time/seat work time. I need some direction!!! Thank you!
First, congratulations on your job! How exciting. I teach second grade and have done a frog theme for the past two years and there is so much stuff out there for this theme. Since your classroom door will be outside (our portable doors are), maybe your tree house theme would work better in the reading corner. And in the books they live in a kind of boggish, marshy type place which would work together with the frog theme! Best of luck on your upcoming year!
I love the idea of building the treehouse scene in the classroom! I'm really not too sure about how to incorporate the pictures into the board. I did however find the website for the Magic Tree house books and they have printables that go with the books. They might serve as good activities to do on the first day of school to get the students excited about the theme. http://www.randomhouse.com/kids/magictreehouse/ Good luck!
Magic Treehouse Book #1 is on dinosaurs! Kids at this age love dinosuars. I think the ladder and treehouse idea is brilliant!
Yes, it sounds like so much fun. You know how the kids read the book and are transported? That would set up a great lesson on how books really do transport you in your imagination, then segue into how authors choose words to create strong images. Teach this before your first read-aloud and go back to it time and again.
Oh and as far as music goes, I play classical music while the kids are working. I don't know if you have a Ross (discount type store) by you but sometimes near the checkout lines that I have a ton of kids CDs on sale. Also check out the following website http://www.allofmp3.com/ You can download songs for about 10 cents each. Preview the music and than burn your own CD. Also a fun CD is music by Mrs. B http://www.mrsbstorytime.com/ She came and did a show for us at school. It was awesome!!! Even the adults really enjoyed it.
You could put the kids names on the tree leaves, apples, rungs of the ladder etc. Our portable door was outside so a couple of the teachers put up holiday wreaths or plants by the door. Welcome rugs etc.
The Magic Tree House is a fun idea because its flexible. You could make a Social Studies bulletin board about places you'll be studying. The books go to different places and see different plants, animals and environments (science lesson) and while visiting different times and places they are exposed to different ways of speaking (Language Arts-word study).
check out MissW's website. She has a portable and her room is fabulous. http://web.sssd.k12.ar.us/southside-east/staff/woodrufh/
Are 2nd graders able to read Magic Tree House Books? I'm in the process of leveling all the books my own kids had and I'm worried that new 2nd graders won't, even though the level is 2.75
I teach 4th Grade and I have used sets of M.T.H. Books to help the students focus on large concepts. We read the "Titanic" book # 17 when we study the ocean. We read the Mt. Vesuvius/Olympics one for Earthquakes in Earth Science as well as The Early Morning Earthquake #24 in San Francisco. As we study the regions of the U.S., we read Buffaloes Before Breakfast #18 and Twister on Tuesday #23 to get the feeling for the great plains and the westward expansion. As we near the Middle Atlantic States Region, we read The Civil War #21. Then, as we go up to New England, we read the Revolutionary War #22. For our International Month, we chose India and read Tigers at Twilight #19. Another year, we studied Australia and used Dingoes at Dinnertime # 20 as an introduction. These great little books allow you to assign point of view writing, practise using grammatical past tense, and introduce persuasive writing to champion causes hinted at in the books.
Sorry guys. My website is down right now. They haven't posted it on the new schools site yet. When they do, I'll post it again. I did a MTH theme last year, and really based it around my library. I formed my library into a tree (stuff wild animals included). My word wall came out of it too. I just used my VBS skills to create it. Large rolls of paper, hot glue, and staples helped to create it. Once again, I will post the pictures when they get the new site up and running.
magic tree house I love your Magic Tree house idea! My third graders loved the MTH series last year and we even saw a MTH show at our state planetarium. I thought making a big Jack and Annie for the door to kind of be our mascots. I would love to collaborate on more ideas if you want. You can email me personally if you want.
It's really easy to make things from the books. Just copy a picture on to a transparency. Then you can create the picture to be life sized on cardboard. Painting it is the most fun. Tempera paint works fine, but acrylic is usually the best for those stand out colors on cardboard. You can even make the other characters like Peanut to have around. As we read the series, we kept notes when we finished each book. I used a short flip chart to keep the notes on. Since every 4 books are tied in together, we would write the four book titles down and what special item was found from each book. After reading them all, we would them write a summary of the overall problem and how it was solved. The kids really get into it. If you do it, you have to commit to reading the series straight through.
