Activities to Use with The Magic Tree House Series

Looking for activities to use as you dive into the Magic Tree House series? Engage your young explorer with these crafts, comprehension activities, and book extension ideas. These activities are perfect for nurturing a love of reading and adventure while targeting key reading skills.

Ready to dive into the Magic Tree House series? Engage your young explorer with these crafts, comprehension activities, and book extension ideas. These activities are perfect for nurturing a love of reading and adventure while targeting key reading skills.

About The Magic Tree House Series

The Magic Tree House transports readers into a world of adventure and learning. Each book in the series follows siblings Jack and Annie as they discover a magical tree house filled with books that allow them to travel through time and space to different historical periods and mythical lands. Each book features a different mission in which Jack and Annie meet historical figures, discover clues, and learn valuable lessons about history and culture. It’s no wonder these books are treasured by loyal readers!

Ways to Read the Books

Because the series includes fiction and nonfiction titles. there are many ways you can read the books. For younger kids, reading the books aloud or listening to audiobooks will help bring the stories to life. For school-aged kids, reading independently or with a buddy can ensure that comprehension is happening. No matter which way you choose to read, remember that these books were written to entertain and spark curiosity!

Where to Find the Books

I was able to track down most of the series in my public library. Many classrooms and school libraries also have copies. If you cannot find them locally, the books are also available on Amazon.

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Activities to Use with The Magic Tree House Series

Whether you’re just getting started with the Magic Tree House books, or you’ve joined Jack and Annie on many adventures, there are so many activities to use with the series.

Build Excitement with a Bookmark

Providing a bookmark with an image or quote from the book can transport readers into the book’s world before they even start. These bookmarks help spark curiosity and build anticipation for what’s to come.

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Track Your Reading

Once you dive into The Magic Tree House series, you’ll want an easy way to track which books you’ve read. There are two ways I like to do this.

First, I love a good checklist! This two page document can help your students track the books as they finish reading. Students can either check off or highlight each title as they go.

You can get the checklists here.

Another fun way to track the books you’ve read is with a Tree House Passport. Because Jack and Annie travel through time (and space), it seems fitting to use a passport to track those adventures.

As students finish each book, they can add a themed passport stamp to their booklet. Not only is this motivating, but kids get a fun keepsake to treasure long after closing the books.

Learn more about these passport booklets in this blog post OR on TPT.

Map It Out

One way to keep students engaged with the series is to map out the locations Jack and Annie travel to on a world map. They can tally which continent has the most visits, the distance from their hometown, and learn about locations around the world. This activity allows readers to see how fiction and reality intersect in a fun and engaging way.

Guided Practice

When students are just diving into the world of chapter books, the books can feel overwhelming. Having a set of questions and selected vocabulary can guide student focus and facilitate understanding. This not only strengthens a student’s reading skills, but it builds the foundation kids need to continue with the rest of the series independently and with confidence.

You can find all of my companions here:

Dive Deeper Into the Content

One of my favorite things about this series is how the author has introduced historical concepts in an engaging and accessible way that readers can understand without difficulty. Each of the nonfiction companions, or fact trackers, provides a more in-depth look at science and social studies topics. They also include photos and illustrations, definitions for key vocabulary terms, and fun facts.

One of the questions I get asked often is how to pair the fact trackers with the fiction texts. If you want to build background knowledge before reading Jack and Annie’s adventure, you should read the fact tracker first. If you have a student who asks a lot of great questions about the historical or scientific concepts while reading the adventure, you can encourage them to pick up the fact tracker to learn more. Otherwise, you can choose selected chapters from the fact trackers to help support learning as you read the fiction texts.

Ready to dive deeper into the content while still guiding and supporting students? You can find all of my nonfiction companions here:

Write a Letter

Once students have read a handful of books from the series, they might enjoy writing a letter to Mary Pope Osborne or to Jack and Annie. Readers can share their favorite adventure, ask questions, share their own writing ideas, or simply say thank you!

Timeline of Story Plots

Because Jack and Annie jump back and forth through time, another fun activity you can have students do is create a timeline. You can print covers of the books on a smaller scale and hang them from a clothesline. You can place the year on the clothespin that holds the book cover. As more books are added, students can slide and move them easily to create more room.

Encourage Independent Reading

If your students are ready for independent reading, but you still need a way to check in for accountability, I suggest using a flip book or this library card craft booklet. These were designed to be used with any of the fictional books in the series. You can choose between the pre-designed pages that have responses for characters, setting, problem and solution, and more. Or, you can use the open-ended response pages to make sure kids are working on your current skills and learning targets.

Learn more about these booklets here.

Decorate Your Door or Bulletin Board

Another way to bring a Magic Tree House adventure to life is with a visual display. After reading one of the books as a class, students can help create a bulletin board or decorate your classroom door to match the theme.

Dioramas of Book Settings

One of my favorite culminating projects to complete after reading a Magic Tree House book is a diorama. Yes, the same old shoe box creations that we made as kids. Students can pick their favorite part or create a diorama of the book’s setting to bring the adventure to life.

Encourage Students to Write a New Adventure

One of the many reasons kids love The Magic Tree House is that new adventures and storylines are still being created. Students can use these stories as inspiration for their own writing. This could be as simple as writing a story map. However, students could also dream big and create a reader’s theater for the class to perform.

I hope this has inspired you to try some new activities to pair with the Magic Tree House series.

Do you have any favorite activities to use with The Magic Tree House series? Let me know in the comments.