Christmas Read Aloud Book with Activities: Christmas in Camelot

Christmas is just around the corner and my students are getting excited. How about yours?

Last week we started on our first Magic Tree House Christmas read aloud book by Mary Pope Osborne. The first one I selected is Christmas in Camelot. This is another Merlin Mission, but it just happens to be the very first Merlin Mission Osborne wrote. Through a bit of research, I discovered that the Merlin Missions are longer, have a higher reading level, and smaller print than the other TMTH books. Makes sense to me looking back at the books I've selected for my 3rd graders, but I guess I never made the connection!

In this story, Jack and Annie return to Camelot to find that all of magic has been banned by King Arthur. They discover Camelot is not celebrating Christmas this year. A few key players from the Knights of the Round Table are missing, and Jack and Annie set out to bring them and magic back to Camelot. This story is face-paced and exciting. Jack and Annie must find four gifts in order to break the spell. It incorporates myths from other countries and mystery as the TMTH books always deliver. I found this book was a bit unlike any others we have read... and in a good way!

So far, my students are enjoying this novel and I've found none of them have read it yet. (It's always hard to select a read aloud that none of them have read!) As always, I created a literature guide to use with this story. It includes key chapter questions, approximately 3-5 questions per chapter. We answer these together and review them before starting another chapter. We often complete two chapters in one day, so we fly through these books. My students also review their completed packets before taking their AR test on the book. The guide also includes a creative chapter response for all 16 chapters. My students enjoy these the most as they are a creative bunch. We try to share their work at least three times a week. Sometimes it is with their shoulder partners, and other times the whole class. Finally, the guide includes worksheets that you can do during and after reading the chapter. Every now and then, I copy one of these pages on the backs of the chapter response pages for us to complete together. These worksheets are chock full of common core standards.

Below are a few student pages from what my class did this week. Take a peek at their work!

Here are a few sample pages for you to preview if you are interested in the guide. You can find the whole unit in my TpT store here.

The next book we are going to read before Christmas is A Ghost Tale for Christmas Time, also by Mary Pope Osborne. I love this book even more!

Happy holidays,

Amber