Spinning through the air in a tree house, soaring on the back of a fuzzy Pteranodon, running from a trumpeting T-Rex, what better way to entice first time readers? Reading is an adventure for both boys and girls when Mary Pope Osborne takes children on a journey through time and space in the Magic Tree House series. Our kids loved Jack and Annie, two curious kids who discover a tree house that whirls them on one historical escapade after another. We celebrated our kids' new ability to read chapter books by planning an excursion that matched the theme of the book.
In the first book, Dinosaurs Before Dark, Jack and Annie swirl to the Cretaceous period and encounter four types of dinosaurs. We took a more earthly mode of transportation to our local Natural History Museum for our own hands-on dinosaur experience with fossilized eggs, bones and giggle-inducing poop. We were lucky enough to watch as paleontologists cleaned and assembled Thomas the T-Rex, a 14 year old dinosaur that glitters!
