Magic Tree House Book Box Project
S.O.L. #2 out of 31
As I have mentioned before, my 2nd grade son is a “reluctant reader”. This year, as Valentine's Day approached, his smart, creative teacher came up with yet another way to motivate, encourage and celebrate reading in her 2nd grade class.
Instead of kids spending enormous amounts of time decorating a shoe box with hearts and glitter to a Valentine's box, she asked her students to decorate a box with the theme of a book that they read. Nothing could be store bought. It all must be created or kid made. They planned to share them with the class and they'd also serve as their Valentine Box to collect valentines.
My son selected a Magic Tree House book, Afternoon on the Amazon. As he read this book to me each night, we discussed all the animals mentioned, got out maps to locate the Amazon River and sketched a scene as details were added each chapter. Now I am not going to say he wasn't reluctant to read some nights, but most nights he read it without complaint.
As soon as we finished the book, he knew exactly what he wanted to create. He decided his entire shoe box should become the Magic Tree House. Then when you open it up, it transports you to the Amazon (just like in all of the Magic Tree House books) He planned to decorate the inside like the Amazon jungle. It didn't take him long to find craft sticks in our craft closet and persuade me to allow him to use the hot glue gun all by himself. He covered the entire box with stick after stick. We even cut out a window and made a simple little rope ladder like he imagined Jack and Annie might use. A little bit of paint, raffia for leaves, and clay for a canoe then the inside was a jungle. He was so proud to take his Valentine’s Day Book Report Project to school that day.
Again this smart teacher, knew each student worked so hard on these projects it would be silly just to send them back home. She had the school librarian set them all around the library for the whole school to see.
Tonight my son was extremely proud to share this book project at our school’s monthly PTO meeting too!!
Wow! What a fantastic job your son did. I love that his treehouse transports you to the Amazon Rain Forest. He will certainly remember the book and this project for a long time. I think I'll borrow this idea to use in my first grade classroom next year. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeletePS I love the Magic Treehouse Series!
I think your first graders would do great!
DeleteI love that he was able to celebrate his project with the PTO!
ReplyDeleteI love that he was able to celebrate his project with the PTO!
ReplyDeleteI love this idea, and your son did an amazing job with it. Now, I just need to figure out a way to transfer this idea to 14-year-old 7th graders...LOL!
ReplyDeleteI bet even your 7th graders would love the creation of book boxes...perhaps they could fill them inside with objects that reflect important events in their book.
DeleteMakes me want to make one for my Peaceful Parent, Happy kids, with Smiling parents on the outside and beaming smiling joyful kids on the inside for the rest of their lives!!!
ReplyDeleteWhat a beautiful job! And memorable!
ReplyDelete