Curriculum Connections
Fun with Riddles
based on Sabertooths and the Ice Age - A Magic Tree House Research Guide
by Mary Pope Osborne and Natalie Pope Boyce
Grades: 3–6
View and print the student activity sheet (PDF)
About the Books
Brother and sister, Jack and Annie, embark on another exciting adventure from their tree house. They must help Morgan le Fay, a magical librarian by finding four special things. They have already found two of the four, and they search for the third in this book. They have a new friend, Peanut the mouse, who they found in the tree house. Peanut, Jack and Annie end up in the Ice Age, quite unprepared, because they are still in their bathing suits from swimming at the Y. Cold to the bone, they find their way to a cave, where they borrow animal skin coats from the Cro-Magnons who live there. Peanut disappears and Jack and Annie are forced to follow the mouse�s tracks. They end up meeting with a few very unusual and sometimes scary inhabitants of the Ice Age.
In the Research Guide, Jack and Annie lead your students through pages of interesting facts and information about the Ice Age. From the people who lived during that time, to the animals you will find, to what scientists have found, and much more, everyone will be intrigued by the Ice Age.
Set the Stage
Get students ready to read with some of these items:
- Many children love to learn about animals that lived long ago. The saber tooth is an animal that lived during the Ice Age. Ask the students to look at the front cover and read the title. They can look at the picture and see how that animal looks different from any animal living today.
- Jack and Annie are the main characters of the story. If the students have not read any other Magic Tree House book, they may not know how each story begins. The first few pages tell about the way each Magic Tree House books begin. Be sure to read these together to understand how the tree house is magical and takes the main characters through time.
- What does the boy�s expression on the cover tell you about the tone of the book? Do you think it is scary, funny, or serious?
- Explain how the author researched each time period to add facts (real things that happened) to what is really a fiction (made-up) story.
Review
After reading the story, Sunset of the Sabertooth, and Sabertooths and the Ice Age, discuss the following with the class:
- Why do you think Annie was so eager to meet the Cro-Magnons? What do you think would have happened if they were to meet?
- What is an ancestor? Why was the great cave bear�s cave filled with bones of their ancestors?
- What do you think the Cro-Magnons thought when they came back to their cave and found the towels and goggles that Annie and Jack left in place of the coats? What other story does that remind you of?
- Why do you think the sorcerer helped Jack and Annie?
Student Activity
Students will use the Magic Tree House Reference Guide, Sabertooths and the Ice Age, to solve the riddles.
Related Activities
To extend students� enjoyment of the book, try these:
- Animal Facts: Animals were mentioned in this book. Have reference materials ready for the students to be able to read. Allow the students to choose an animal, find three facts about that animal that they would like to share with the class and make the animal out of clay for display in the room.
- Mask Making: While exploring the Cro-Magnons cave, Jack and Annie found cave paintings. They found the painting of the sorcerer who had the antlers of a reindeer, and the face of an owl. Let children put together two or three animal parts to create their own mask using a paper plate, markers, and construction paper.
- Big Dig: Archaeologists are scientists who study ancient people. Use the sand box or a section of the playground at your school to bury objects of today. Pretend your class is a team of archaeologists of the future and embark on the site �dig� to find the buried objects. Talk about how these scientists must try to figure out what the objects they find were used for. These objects tell a lot about the people who lived and used them.
- Animals of Today & Yesterday: Compare and contrast two of the main animals in the story, the saber tooth of the Ice Age and a mountain lion or tiger of today, and the wooly mammoth of the Ice Age and an elephant of today. Use a double bubble or a Venn diagram or similar graphic organizer to display the findings.
Lesson Developed by Kelley Raybon
Kelley Raybon has been teaching elementary school for 20 years. She is currently a curriculum resource teacher at an elementary school. She earned a Bachelor�s and Master�s degree in Elementary Education from the University of Central Florida in Orlando.
(PDF)
View and print using Adobe Acrobat Reader version 4.0 or higher.
Get Adobe
Acrobat for Free.
