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Magic Tree House (6-8yr) Puzzles & Games

February 2002

Teresa in Jackson, MI  USA

Special Mention

MAGIC TREE HOUSE  This party is for any age child who is reading the "Magic Tree House" series by Mary Pope Osborne.  Generally grades 1-3.  My husband and myself put this great party together with only a weeks notice.  Preparation: We decided to have the kids go on several missions for their party activities.  In between missions we would have the usual party activities such as opening gifts and having cake.

Planning the missions- - we gathered all 25 books -I went to the computer to see what I could find.    Nothing, we were on our own. -We decided to do puzzles and games that led to a hide  and seek ending. -I went to discoveryschool.com and searched their site for puzzlemaker.  Here we made several mission clues.

1.crossword puzzle using all clues related to the books. Example: A. Jack fell asleep while riding this animals back. B. Gave them the fruit from the Amazon rain forest. When the puzzle was complete we numbered certain letters form them to reach the clue.  Our clue was, "polar bears,  find them." 

2. word search with a message that said "find the king of the beasts"  3. We went the  "RIDDLE BOOKS" # 9-12 and copied the riddle that was answered "honey" and a 2nd one that answered "mask".  4. Their last mission was a word scramble that said "you are now a Master Librarian. When making the invitations, we had them bring their backpacks. I made a cake that had a "3-D" tree on it with a rope ladder leading into the tree.  It was Magic Tree House  # 8 1/2 since this was a 1/2 birthday party for my son. We titled the book "Party at Michael's". 

Decorations: Our 3 boys worked on this all through the week. We would turned our kitchen into the magic tree house.  This is where all their missions would begin and end. To do this we used large sheets of white paper and colored them to look like a wooden tree house and had pictures from the books drawn in the windows. We drew the basic outline and the kids had all week to color them. 

PARTY DAY: The kitchen was transformed to the tree house by hanging our drawings from cabinets, ceilings, door frames and the front door, that featured a huge tree with the rope ladder.   When the quests arrived they had to recite the words from the book that started all Jack and Annie's missions.   

The wind started to blow the tree house started to spin it spun faster and faster then everything was still absolutely still!  The kids played until all the quests arrived. When everybody was here we gathered into the tree house with their backpacks to have a good dinner before the first mission.  The backpacks were turned in for a "leather bag" that was an old purse of mine.  In the leather bag they had to put in things they might need to help them on their missions.  The kids came up with all kinds of creative things.  Fortunately this included paper and pencil. 

Mission 1: this was the "honey riddle and they had to find the little bear jars of honey that we had hidden around.  One for each kid.  When this mission was complete the jars went right into their backpacks.

Mission 2: this was the crossword puzzle for polar bears and they had to find the plastic polar bears.  Again straight into each backpack.

Mission 3: was the riddle that answered "mask. They then plugged the letters into s saying: Momsters At Starting Book.  This led them to find the plastic dinosaur figures that we had hidden. Into each backpack again.

Mission 4: was finding lions from the word search with a message.

Mission 5: the word scramble.  They each got a Magic Tree house Book. 

Of course , right into their backpacks to save confusion of things getting lost before the end.  I had called all the parents to find out which books each child needed.  This turned out to be interesting because most of the kids had most of the books.  The missions were all done as a group so nobody was working too long or hard to solve them.  The kids couldn't get enough of this!!  I was shocked to see several of the kids knew every book cover to cover. At the end of each mission was a note from Morgan about when to return for the next mission.  In between missions we 1. ate cake 2. opened presents 3. PLAYED CHARADES with the book titles.  WHAT A HIT!!!   

Again the kids couldn't get enough of this.  We ended up acting out 20 of the 25 books.  As the kids left they repeated the "poem" to end their mission and went home with all they had found, plus a larger word search and a trivia facts sheet that I had gotten from kidsread.com. 

Wrap up: This party was simple to plan with the help of puzzlemaker.  You could make it any skill level with any facts from any book.  THE KIDS LOVED IT!

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