Ghost Town at Sundown

I recently bought a book titled "Games and Puzzles from the Tree House" by Mary Pope Osborne and Natalie Pope Boyce. I found the three warm-up activities for this week's meeting in this book. There was a connect-the-dots worksheet forming a pair of cowboy boots, musical notes code that when solved displayed the message "Be nice to those around you," and follow-the-line maze connecting the baby and mother mustangs. 

I summarized the tenth book, Ghost Town at Sundown, and asked the children a variety of questions about the book.

When we arrived at the part in the book where the tree house spun and took Jack and Annie to the Wild West, each child received a Dizzy Pill (which is actually a tootsie roll) to help make them less dizzy. After eating their Dizzy Pills, the children were instructed to spin around three times, as if they were in the spinning tree house.

When we got to the part in the book where Jack wrote in his notebook, I showed the notebook I made that has all of Jack's notes in it.

Our first craft was making a cowboy puppet (just like Slim!) out of a brown paper bag. Before the meeting, I printed out a cowboy hat and vest for each child, which they decorated with crayons, cut out, and glued onto their bag. The children also colored their cowboy puppets, adding eyes, mouths, buttons for the vests, stars for the hats, etc.

Later, we made ghosts (just like Lonesome Luke!) by covering a Tootsie Roll lollipop with a thick white napkin and then tying the napkin with white yarn. I passed out markers, which the children used to draw faces onto their ghosts.

Our last craft was making a clothespin horse. Before the meeting, I printed out a horse template for each child, which can be found at http://www.busybeekidscrafts.com/support-files/horse.pdf. The children colored and cut out the horse, and then I passed out google eyes and yarn for them to glue on. Each child also received two clothespins to clip onto their horse, allowing it to stand up on its own.