I think David first became aware of ancient Egyptian history from a Little Einsteins video, “Disney’s Little Einsteins - The Legend of the Golden Pyramid,” we rented one weekend. It was there that heiroglyph and sphinx were added to his vocabulary. Serendipitously, his Grandma gave him a computer game called “Scooby-Doo: Jinx at the Sphinx,” at about the same time as I purchased a cheap damaged copy of Ancient Egypt Dot-to-Dot (Connect the Dots & Color) at the local bookstore.

So, when we first got around to reading Mummies in the Morning, David was already excited and familiar with ancient Egypt. We must have read this one five or six times in a row before he was ready to move on to the next Magic Tree House book. It’s still one of his favorites.

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David went through a short time when he was fanatical about knights. I think it started with Scooby-Doo. He loved the episode with the black knight. It did, however, confuse him when we later read a version of Ivanhoe where the Black Knight was King Richard the Lionheart. And then, we discovered that nearly every book about knights included some knight dressed all in black. It sort of made me wish that authors would get more creative with medieval colors… how about a chartreuse knight for a change?

Knights, Castles and Medieval Times

Reading:
There are sooo many great books about knights and castles out there for kids, there’s no way I could list them all. I can’t even list all the ones David has in his library. But, I can list a few of my favorites:

• Knight: A Noble Guide for Young Squires (Genuine & Moste Authentic Gdes) — In a letter to his son Hector, Sir Geoffrey de Lance explains that he is being held captive by a French knight and is writing this book to instruct the boy in the ways of knighthood in hopes that he will someday come to his rescue. A fun ‘authentic’ looking book with lots of flaps, envelopes and doo-dads to keep kids engaged.
• Castle: Medieval Days and Knights (A Sabuda & Reinhart Pop-up Book) — I’m a huge fan of pop-up books, and this one (though not as awe-inspiring as the Dinosaurs popup I linked to for the Dinosaurs before Dark book) is still awesome to pop open and explore.
• Knights And Castles (Magic Tree House Research Guide, paper) — This is the research book companion to the Magic Treehouse book, and it’s written in the same engaging, kid-friendly way as the chapter book. The illustrations are great, and it’s fun to read.

Printables:

• The Knight at Dawn Word Search from the Magic Treehouse official website.
• The Parts of Armor from About.com Homeschooling site.
• Skipton Castle – Coloring pages of castle interiors, knights and more
• Great-Castles.com — Color pictures of real castles
• Knights and Castles Crossword (PDF Format)

Games and Online Activities:

• Destroy the Castle — The trebuchet was one of the most devastating weapons of the Middle Ages. During medieval sieges, this destruction machine crushed castle walls. Using trial and error, medieval engineers adjusted the trebuchet to make sure its missile hit the castle wall—and destroyed it.
• Castle Conquest – Man the battlements! Crush the enemy castle and become lord of the land.
• Castle Wars is an online card game where your goal is to be the first to build a 100 storey castle, you also win by destroying your opponents castle.
• Create a castle/medieval city — from City Creator. Careful moms and dads. This one can hoover your time quickly if you get into it.

Other Stuff

• Book Unit - Vocabulary, Questions and Activities for each chapter of The Knight at Dawn

For the last few months, David’s bedtime ritual has included a few chapters of what he calls, “Jack and Annie stories,” more commonly referred to as The Magic Treehouse books by Mary Pope Osborne.

After picking up books in no particular order from used bookstores, we finally decided to fill out the rest of the series from Amazon.com, so we’ve got a full set up to #34. There’s more to collect, I know, and it appears that the author has not yet run out of ideas, but 34 books is a pretty good start, in my estimation, so we’ll leave it at that for now.

David has decided that he wants to read the entire series, in order, this summer — partly because we discovered the official series website and printed off the “passport“. So, we’re starting with #1, reading a book every two or three nights, and of course, collecting the passport stamps along the way.

I decided, after reading the first part of Dinosaurs before Dark this evening, that I may as well find related coloring pages, books and activities for David to work on during the days and mornings to expand on the event or place in the Magic Treehouse books. So, every few days I thought I’d post a Magic Treehouse tie-in to the book we’re at.

The first, of course, is Dinosaurs Before Dark

Dinosaurs

Reading:

• Pteranodon: Winged and Toothless- In Dinosaurs Before Dark, Jack and Annie are saved by a Pteranodon. This page from the Enchanted Learning Center is all about those flying reptiles.
• Encyclopedia Prehistorica Dinosaurs by Sabuda and Reinhart– This amazing pop-up book is worth buying as a work of paper engineering. The text is also quite informative, and serves as a fantastic way to explore the world of dinosaurs.

Printables:

• Dino Word Search - Go digging for Dino words in this printable activity!
• Dinosaur Worksheets - a variety of printable dinosaur worksheets and coloring pages from Learning Page.com
• Dinosaur Who Am I? printable from the Magic Treehouse Website

Games and Online Activities:

• Match the Bones — Choose the dinosaur each bone belongs to.
• Dino Saurs! — Prehistoric winds have blown pterodactyl eggs out of their nests in this dinosaur game and it’s up to you to find them! This arcade-style game with a dinosaur-theme is a great way to get kids excited about these amazing reptiles.
• Dinosaur Dig — Future paleontologists can do their very own Dinosaur Dig. This is a fun exercise in mapping coordinates that also ties into earth science, rocks and minerals as well as exploration.
• Dinosaur Egg Hunt — Play the Dinosaur Egg Hunt to learn about the great lizards that once roamed on Earth! Kids will find this concentration-style memory game to be a fun way to keep their brains limber.
• Dinosaur Quiz Game — Test your knowledge of dinosaur trivia with this short online quiz.
• Dinosaur Playground - A collection of simple online dinosaur games and puzzles.
• Palaeo Pursuit –As a junior palaeontologist, find your way to the dig. On your journey, you will encounter rocks, questions and discoveries!

More Stuff:

• Teaching Ideas page for Dinosaurs Before Dark - from Teachers @ Random
• Vocabulary, Questions and Activities for Dinosaurs before Dark — Activities for each chapter from Mountain City Elementary School

I do love iTunes. I don’t buy, or even listen to, a lot of music, but the iTunes podcast directory is simply awesome. My computer is filled with over 25 gigs of podcast material, about half of which I haven’t had time to listen to yet.

Today I upgraded my software, and the first thing I noticed was a new link to something called iTunesU , which contains links to podcasts of courses and lectures from a wide variety of universities.

I’ve been a huge fan of the podcasts from UC Berkeley for quite a while now, but there are some really fascinating looking course podcasts in iTunesU that I missed completely from other institutions. I’ve started subscribing to all of them… though I have no idea when I’ll have time to listen to them all.

If you’re looking for a fun and interesting course to listen to, my favorites from UC Berkeley are:

• European Civilization from the Renaissance to the Present — a nice, well presented overview. Good for audio only listening.
• Introduction to General Astronomy — the lecturer in this course is worth watching in the video version.
• Earthquakes in your backyard - This is a totally fascinating course, and not too hard to follow. It’s in audio only, but be sure to check out the course website to download the supplementary materials, which make it understandable.
• Man, God and Society in Western Literature — some of the audio in this one is really bad and/or missing, which sucks because this is a really great series of lectures, especially if you follow along with the readings.