The Classroom Adventures Program was designed by teachers, for teachers. We spoke with two of the key teachers behind the creation of the curriculum materials for the Classroom Adventures Program. Both of them won the Magic Tree House Educator of the Year Award: Paula Henson from Knoxville, Tenn., won in 2007, and Paula Cirillo from Moorpark, Calif., is the 2009 winner.
Author Mary Pope Osborne hired Cindy Mill of Milestone Productions, based in Minnesota, to create the Classroom Adventures Program. The author had witnessed Henson and Cirillo's successes firsthand, and encouraged Mill to get in touch with the teachers to tie lesson plans for the books to the core curriculum standards. These standards were once established state by state, but most have now gone national, according to Henson and Cirillo.
"Mary's work has transformed my teaching," Henson said. Her son built a life-size Magic Tree House for her classroom as his Eagle Scout project, using the trunk of a huge oak tree donated by a Knoxville tree surgeon, and painted a mural of Frog Creek Woods (where heroes Jack and Annie live) on the walls. Students sit on a bench at the bottom of the tree and pull out headsets from its roots to listen to the books on CD.
Paula Cirillo starts the school year by asking each student to choose one Magic Tree House book to read. She matches a book to the child's interest. For instance, she'll recommend Midnight on the Moon to a child with an interest in space. "As the year goes on, they become a specialist for all the connections they'll make with that book." She instructs them to build a tree house in the setting for the book they've chosen, rather like a 3-D book report. "When you step into our classroom, you know it's a Magic Tree House environment," Cirillo said. Henson added, "They feed off of each other's enthusiasm."
The duo believes it's important to keep building the Magic Tree House library as the school year progresses, and some teachers don't have the budget to do that. Through the Classroom Adventures Program, qualifying schools will be able to request the titles they want, correlating them to their students' interests, and receive them through the partnership with First Book. That's "the gift of books" Osborne mentions. "The second ingredient to the Magic Tree House classroom is the lesson plans," Cirillo said. "That's where the gift of time comes in: downloadable lesson plans from Paula Henson, myself and other teachers across the country. We've put in so much of our own time because we love it, and not every teacher has that time." Henson added, "They can meet these core standards in ways that can get the kids excited."
Henson and Cirillo established a Curriculum Key that will sort the 47 (and future) novels and related Fact Trackers by subject. Teachers will be able to find every Magic Tree House book that would teach that particular subject, and also click on a specific book to see which subjects that volume covers. Once a teacher selects a book, he or she can sort them by the core standards (e.g., within language arts, the teacher will see the standards that apply for cause and effect, speaking and listening, etc.). They'll also be able to see the reading level for each book in a variety of scales (e.g., accelerated reader level, the Lexile system, etc.).
"I'm big on making connections. Recent research has shown that as you make connections to other books, other life experiences, your own schema, comprehension increases," Cirillo said. "Just yesterday one of my students told me he saw a picture of the Mona Lisa on a bag at the supermarket, and that made him think of Monday with a Mad Genius."
What excites Henson most about the Classroom Adventures Program is the idea of getting this out to teachers who "probably have to buy their own books with their own money," said Henson. Teachers can request specific titles and the Fact Trackers that go with them. She added, "I think it's important to be able to tailor the program to the interests of your students." What most excites Cirillo is the fact that she can share these lessons, and they'll reach students besides her own. "I've seen the difference it's made in my life and my students' lives," Cirillo said. One parent told her, "I don't know what you've done, but you've lit a fire under my son. He reads for an hour after school." Cirillo added, "That's the reward we get, and that gives us the adrenaline rush to burn the candle at both ends to get this done."