Homeschool Crew Review: The Magic Stories

Allsaid & Dunn, LLC, publishers of The Reading Game and authors of the Wordly Wise series, has released a brand new product for children with a 2nd-3rd grade reading level called The Magic Stories.  I have had an opportunity to review The Magic Stories over the last few weeks with my 3rd grade daughter.

The Magic Stories is a set of 6 stories.  It was designed to be a follow up to The Reading Game, but you do not have to use The Reading Game before going through The Magic Stories.  It is available for purchase as a download.  With your purchase you receive all 6 stories at around 20 pages each,  a set of Naughty 40 flashcards for each story, and 4 worksheets for each story.  There is also a running record page and pre/post flashcards sight word assessment. The stories can be read on a tablet or computer or printed out.  The flashcards can be printed out on cardstock.  The words on the flashcards are the most difficult words your child will encounter in the story.  They can practice with the flashcards before reading the story to help with word recognition and build confidence while reading.  After finishing reading the story, the student can work on the worksheets which include a story maze, finish the sentence page, Imagine, and Finish the Story.  The Magic Stories includes:

The Magic Hole

The Magic Axe

The Magic Joke

The Magic Hotdog

The Magic Boots

The Magic Box

In The Magic Hole, Ping Ho finds a bag with a magic hole.  When all of her rice comes up missing, her family doesn't believe her that there was a hole in the bag. But the hole starts appearing in different places and changes her family's life.  In The Magic Axe, Tom does not like to have to do any work.  When his father is injured he has to be the man in the family.  Trying to avoid work, he is thrilled when he comes upon a magic axe.  The Magic Joke is about a joke that is so funny anyone who hears or reads it is overcome with fits of laughter.  The king decides to use the joke against a kingdom he is at war against to win the war.  The Magic Hotdog is about a boy named Alfred who loves hotdogs and comes across a magic hotdog that doesn't disappear no matter how many bites you take.  In The Magic Boots, Patty is a six year old girls who really wants a pair of pixie boots.  The Magic Box is about Rum-pel-stilt-skin and how he used a magic box to turn gold to straw.

You can purchase The Magic Stories for $16.95 or you can buy individual titles for $3.95.

I used The Magic Stories with my daughter Lily who is 8 years old and a very strong reader.  The first story I printed out but the others we just read on my iPad and found that much easier.  I did not use the Naughty 40 flashcards with her, because I wanted to see if any of the words would give her trouble, they did not. If I had been using this with a child that was not such a strong reader I would have gone over the words several times before attempting to read the stories.  The stories are quite lengthy at around 20 pages each.  That is more then Lily is used to reading aloud, so we took turns reading them together.  She read a paragraph and then I read a paragraph.

I really liked the worksheets that came with The Magic Stories.  They are more then just your simple read the story and answer the questions.  We especially liked the Maze and the Write the Story.  I wish there was more teacher direction with The Magic Stories and an answer key for parents who may not be reading the stories with their children.

To see what my Crew Mates had to say, stop by the Crew Blog!