Dinosaurs Before Dark (Fantasy)

What would you do if you walked into your back yard and saw a tree house in your back yard that was not there when you went to sleep the night before? In Mary Pope Osborne's first book of the Magic Tree House series Jack and Annie run into this exact problem. Curiosity gets the best of them and what they discover is not something they could have ever imagined in their wildest dreams. The Magic Tree house takes them to the land of the dinosaurs, just by Jack opening one of the hundreds of books that are housed in the tree house. Jack and Annie see all types of dinosaurs but are really challenged when a T-Rex stands between them and the Tree House....

I would use this book in the classroom as a way to incorporate elements of history into the students writing. I could prompt them with a writing tasks that asks them to pick a time period that they would want to travel too if they found the tree house in their back yard. Students could also improve their narrative writing skills through this activity as well. The Magic Tree House series is a great series to use in the classroom since the books cover many different time periods. You could use the whole series in the classroom by having each student read a different story and then creating small group discussions with each other this creates a student generated discussion.