Welcome to Treehouse Book Club!
Treehouse Book Club is a monthly book club membership designed for families with children ages 6-12. Dive deep into living literature in your homeschool connecting themes to science, nature, geography, history, and language arts. Then, join with online or in-person community to celebrate finishing the book together.
November Book Club Pick
The November Treehouse Book Club Pick is Rascal by Sterling North.
Rascal: A Memoir of a Better Era, is a semi-autobiographical children’s book by Sterling North about his childhood in Wisconsin during the last year of World War I. The story chronicles the days of 11-year-old Sterling North, who captures and befriends a baby raccoon he names Rascal. Sterling and Rascal adventure together while the world around them is changing with industrialization on the horizon and World War I drawing to a close.
Rascal is a coming of age story intertwined with loss — loss of innocence, family, and friends. Sterling is forced to make many of life’s difficult choices alone as he grows into a young man. The book compares Sterling’s relationships with animals to the adults around him. Rascal was a 1964 Newbery Honor book, won the 1964 Lewis Carroll Shelf Award, and won the 1966 Sequoyah Book Award.
Themes covered in Rascal:
- Canoes
- Wisconsin Native American tribes
- The Black Hawk war
- Wisconsin native birds - whippoorwills
- Flora and fauna of
- Wisconsin/Lake Superior
- End of World War I and Armistice Day
- Lake Superior rocks and minerals - agates
Coming December 1st!
The December Book Club pick is The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder. The Long Winter is a historical fiction novel that tells about the unusually harsh winter of 1880-81 that brought months of blizzards and other difficulties to the Dakota Territory and the homesteaders living there. The autobiographical fiction paints a picture of frontier life and displays values that drove her family and others to move west.
The story takes place in the newly formed frontier town of De Smet. Though the Ingalls family move to 160 acres of land awarded through the Homestead Act of 1982, minimal food stores and marginal resources force 13-year-old Laura and her family to move from their new property into town to survive the seven-month winter. Throughout the winter as blizzards blanket the town with snow, they learn how to adjust to new circumstances and make the best of challenges. As the Ingalls survive the winter, the story shows the long-suffering that winter requires, and the renewal of spring that comes after.
This book is the sixth novel in the Little House on the Prairie series and the recipient of a Newberry Honor.
Watch: How to Use Treehouse Book Club
What's included in the Book Club Membership?
Monthly Book Guides
Each month, you'll receive a detailed digital Book Club Guide which includes four Weekly Lesson Grids. The Weekly Lesson Grid is intended to be used as a menu for how to study the assigned reading each week. Lesson plans are compiled in a weekly format, so the parent can choose which activities to use each day. These lessons offer opportunities to READ, DISCUSS, LEARN, EXPLORE, and MAKE bringing the books to life. The Book Club Guide also includes materials lists, recipes, worksheets, and reference links to enhance your study.
Book Report Booklet
Each month, your children will complete a book report using that month's Book Report Template. They'll illustrate their own covers, journal about their favorite characters, and write summaries of what they learned.
Illustrated Dictionary
As your children come across unfamiliar words in the story, they will create an entry in the Illustrated Dictionary. They will write the unfamiliar word, look it up in a dictionary, write the definition, and write it in a complete sentence. As the weeks go by, they will compile their own Illustrated Dictionary which can be saved and bound.
Book Club Meet-up Guide
If you are gathering with an in-person group, the Book Club Meet-up Guide provides ideas for food and activities specific to each month's book pick.
Exclusive Access to the Treehouse Book Club Community
Treehouse Book Club Members will get access bonus content in their account dashboard and connect with other members of the Treehouse Book Club community in our exclusive Community Group. This group will be used to share ideas and inspiration and find local members to plan meet-ups.
See a sample lesson plan
Each book contains four weekly lesson plans to be used as a menu so parents can choose which activities to do each day.
FAQs
What if I don't have an in-person community?
The Treehouse Book Club online community can be your community! Connect with other families reading the book online or find local meet-ups in your area. You can also call your family a "Book Club" and celebrate the finishing of the book each month together by using the activity guide. If you're not interested in the club aspect, simply use the lesson plans as a full literature curriculum.
Can the Book Club Guides be purchased without a membership?
Yes! Each month after Book Club ends, the Book Club Guides will be sold individually in our shop.
Can I change or cancel my subscription?
Yes! Book Club Members can cancel their membership at any time. Visit your Treehouse Customer Account Portal and click 'Manage Memberships' or email [email protected].
Can this count as a literature curriculum?
Yes! The content in each month's Book Club Guide includes reading, writing, and narration. There are opportunities for copywork, author study, exploring writing styles, and completing individual creative writing resulting in a robust, year-long literature curriculum.
What ages is Treehouse Book Club Designed for?
Treehouse Book Club is designed for ages 6-12. The books can be read aloud by a parent or independently read by older students. Like all Treehouse Schoolhouse resources, it is designed for family-style learning, so there are suggestions for including younger children.
Does each member of a book club need a membership or only the host?
Each book club family should have an active Treehouse Book Club Membership. Families can access the Book Club Guides to read and study throughout the month and then use the Book Club Meet-up Guide to gather as a group.
Our Core Values
How our Members are using Treehouse Book Club
Let customers speak for us
This curriculum is a wonderfully varied and deep way to work with content connected to Thanksgiving. It is easy to use and adapt to the child/children you are working with at any given time. I used some of it with my 1st grade class this year and I look forward to incorporating even more of it next year.
I've taught many holiday units and this was my first time trying this one. I was pleasantly surprised. It's hard to find a combination of rich content and simple execution. I enjoy the day laid out the way it is written.
We purchased our first curriculum from Treehouse Schoolhouse and can't wait to buy more! My two girls, 6 & 8, absolutely loved learning about the history of Thanksgiving and all the amazing hands-on projects that went with each day's lesson. Who knew they had such great whittling skills!? We were very impressed with everything we learned and will be buying the Connected Christmas next week!
We are always captivated by your creations, and A Treasured Thanksgiving is no exception. The hands on activities and book suggestions have made this time of year extra special.
I've really enjoyed this study with my young kiddos. There is so much great content and activities. Since they are young, I stuck to the read alouds this year, but plan to do more activities in years to come!
Our family absolutely loves digging in this thanksgiving Charlotte Mason feel adventure!
Exactly what I was looking for. Beautiful. Lots of book options. Perfect for “Christmas school” in December.
This unit is exactly what I was looking for. Full of crafts, lovely picture books, beautiful music, and scripture
We really enjoyed this curriculum! It was very organized and easy to follow! Most importantly, we learned a lot!
Absolutely loved this unit. The books were challenging to find, but when we couldn’t find on YouTube - we just found an alternative. Being a M.Ed myself, I appreciate the wonderful art, true history living books and meaningful crafts. We are going to be doing the Christmas unit next!
I’ve learned more about the history of Thanksgiving than ever before in 13 years of public school!! My kids are younger, so I was able to pick and choose which activities and subjects were most digestible for their capacities and attention spans. There’s so many options that I can use this curriculum for many years and the kids will experience it differently each year! I love this program!
Brings my children to the true meaning of Thanksgiving in an easy step by step approach in timeline
My 2y loves the activities and the pictures are beautiful.
My kids enjoyed the crafts so much! This study was planned out and very smooth. Whittling was a major hit!!
Very much enjoying this curriculum. Love that it incorporates the word of God and has material that leads to meaningful conversations with my kids. Really love the variety of books, though some were hard to find so we had to skip them. I think this would've been enjoyed much more if I had more lead time to try to get the various books and hands on materials, but plan to do again in a few years so for now we are having fun with it.