Friday, May 21, 2010

A Castle Fit for The Frizz

We've been reading Ms. Frizzle's Adventures by Joanna Cole, this week (thanks to Fairion from Lionden Landing, for recommending them).



They are very similar to The Magic School Bus series, also by Joanna Cole. But, this time Ms. Frizzle is without her bus, and the topic is social studies, rather than science. There are only three picture books in the series, but they are so packed full of detail, they've kept us busy all week.

Our favorite of the three is Ms. Frizzle's Adventures: Medieval Castle, which prompted us to build a castle of our own, today. The little ones helped glue the printable template, we found here, at StormTheCastle.com, to empty cereal boxes, and gathered four empty toilet paper rolls, for me.


I cut the pieces out, and assembled the castle, with tape, and glue.


Then, they decorated it, in beautiful princess colors - perhaps not authentic to medieval times, but still a lot of fun. And, it did provide us with opportunity to review the parts of a castle, such as the gate house, the keep, the parapet, and the bailey, all new words we learned thanks to Ms. Frizzle.

To find more children's book reviews, and recommendations, check out this week's What My Child is Reading, link-up/blog hop, at Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns.




It's great to be a homeschooler.

6 comments:

Debbie said...

I love the castle they made!

I am adding these to my list for future reference. We are not too enthused with the magic school bus collection here just yet.

Ticia said...

That castle turned out so cool!
I haven't tried the history ones yet, a few others had commented it was a little over their little guys heads.

Sandra said...

I did not know about this series that was different from the Magic School bus. We can read them to add to our geography studies. I will definitely look for them. Thanks!

silly eagle books said...

Your castle is awesome! And I had no idea about these books--thanks for sharing!

Natalie PlanetSmarty said...

We read the Egypt one here, and it was definitely overkill for Anna. We will return to them when she is a bit older. You built an awesome castle!

Anne said...

I used the Castle and Egypt titles when I taught middle school social studies - it got the kids interested enough in the content to pay attention when we hit the textbook. It's a little beyond my preschooler I think, but definitely some I will hold on to.