Monday, September 10, 2012

Dragons of the Red Dawn - Magic Tree House

My second grade class has just finished reading Dragons of the Red Dawn from the Magic Tree House series.  We have had a wonderful adventure with this story. A couple of days I had Japanese parasols, fans, a black gi or two, several  lengths of red shiny fabric printed with a Japanese garden motif. I let the students dress up however they thought would look good and add to the story.

The day that we were to read chapter eight, this dragon head and green fabric was on one of the classroom tables as they entered the room. That got them wondering about the chapter! We enjoyed it so much.

I made the dragon head from the box my Mac came in. The box opens up and has a handle - I thought, " What a great box - this should be turned into something....."  I literally opened it up and put it on my head with the long part stretching out in front of my head, on my arms. At that moment Ii could see the dragon head in MY head!

I covered the box with green paper and cut green foam for the ear-horn sections, the teeth, etc. I cut two styrofoam balls flat on the bottom so they would sit on the snout, then cut off the back of them, flat, so they sit against the forehead part better.

The foam came from Hobby Lobby - 12 x 18. I also had to have that little feather boa. Part of it is on the top of the head and part of it is on either side of the head.

The large green fabric is bright green felt, with pom poms in a pattern on either side. This can be put on a table, like in the pic, so that "Jack and Annie" can sit up on the table and rifde the dragon, OR it can be used to move around the classroom. If you put a student under the head and 3 or 4 students under the green fabric, you can have the dragon move around the classroom!

 Have fun, and make every book you read MEMORABLE!

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