Your kids will be off to another Geronimo Stilton adventure when they read the next Geronimo Stilton books. The Journey Through Time #2: Back in Time will delight your kids who love to time travel.
Too, I have a hands-on history LEGO temple craft which will keep your learners engaged.
Add in my Meso-America Lapbook about Ancient Maya and you have a full history and literature unit study.
Besides being a special edition book, the time machine will take your kids to learn about ancient Rome in 45 BC, the Maya Empire 1005, and to the Palace of Versailles in 1682 CE.
You could just use this wonderful book for reference about those history topics. I always have a great history encyclopedia close too if we want to do further research.
Although the fun and adventurous Geronimo Stilton is on another adventure, this book can be used for historical fiction.
Geronimo Stilton Books Reading Level
In addition, if you not heard about this fun series of books, here are some quick facts.
- Geronimo Stilton is a fun loving and adventurous mouse who runs a newspaper. However, as he states his favorite activity is writing adventure stories.
- The books are full of color pictures and crazy fonts. This may be distracting for some kids, but others love it.
- Geronimo Stilton’s author is Elisabetta Dami who is an Italian author of children’s book. She also has a passion for archaeology and visiting historical places which she embeds in the books.
- And the reading age is 7 to 10 years old.
And wow was this little book packed!
While it is a fun book with lots of great illustrations and font type, color, and size changes to keep it interesting for readers I love that it was so chock full of information.
Today, we focused on the Mayan civilization, but will come back to these other time periods in the book.
Back in Time, The Second Journey Through Time
Another tip, if you didn’t want your kids to read the entire book for the sake of time or because you have a reluctant reader is to focus on the middle section which is the Mayans.
Each story is distinctly broken up. You can have your children read the first part to find out how Geronimo travels.
Then skip to the Maya Civilization, saving the other parts for another unit study.
We incorporated history, art, science, reading, and more into this fun LEGO activity.
I was impressed by how much history is covered.
These are the things this section covers.
- Exploring the Americas
- Maps of the Yucatan Peninsula
- Tropical Rainforest
- Mayan Fashion and Customs
- Chichen Itza
- The Legend of The Mayan Sun god
- Pok-Ta-Pok
- Mysteries of the Maya
You’ll love learning just as much as your kids.
We put together a simple LEGO build to share that will help keep your kids engaged while you teach them all about the Mayans.
Here are some simple instructions but encourage your child to use critical thinking to put it together as well.
Challenge them to make it bigger and use the whole baseplate!
Geronimo Stilton – Build a LEGO Temple of Kukulcan
You will need:
- A large LEGO baseplate
- A couple handfuls of LEGO- Cream, brown, or yellow
If you don’t already have a collection of LEGO, look at the large creative box.
LEGO is an amazing learning tool for all ages and this is a good basic set to start with.
Even your teen will still love learning with them and creating.
Start by creating a base that is 10×10 studs wide on your baseplate.
So that is the little studs that stick up on top of the LEGO.
You can do it with a combination of 1×2, 2×2’s, and 2×4 sized bricks. They don’t all need to be the same.
Place your next layer leaving a border of 1 stud showing all the way around on your base layer.
Continue the same way, leaving a 1 stud border around 4 more times until your top is just 1 or 2 2×2 bricks stacked.
Create steps by centering 1×2 bricks all the way up.
Your pyramid of Kukulkan is done!
To extend this lesson a little bit I also challenged the kids to create rainforest animals using LEGO.
We used this page on rainforest animals for inspiration!
This little add on activity gives your kids some science and art with their history lesson and its fun to see what they come up with.
Look at the kids activities from the rainforest.
And the undergrowth..
Other Geronimo Stilton Books and Activities
You’ll love these other tips on the Geronimo Stilton books.
- Geronimo Stilton The Curse of The Cheese Pyramid Barbie Mummy
- Easy and Fun Who Is Geronimo Stilton Rodent Notebooking Page
And if you love this book, check out Journey Through Time and the topics are how the dinosaurs became extinct, how the Great Pyramid of Giza was built, and what life was like at King Arthur’s court.
Also, if you have younger kids they’ll love this Geronimo Stilton 12 Inch Plush Doll Character while you read aloud. (adorable)
When I do these simple hands on activities I like to let the kids work on them while I am either doing a read aloud or showing a short video on our subject.
They absorb information while their hands work believe it or not!
To round out a mini study you could also use the book to…
- Create other famous structures from Chichen Itza
- Have them make a salt dough map of the Yucatan Peninsula
- Create a list of resources from the rainforests
- Taste test some of those treats from the rainforest (a multi sensory approach works great and kids will never forget where those items come from)
- Create ancient Mayan fashion from scrap fabric
- Look up vocabulary words from the pages like-cacao, artisanal, obsidian, toxins, etc…
- Create a Mayan hut with popsicle stick
- Make Mayan Flatbread
- Create a Maya Calendar
- Recreate their own version of Pok-a-Tok
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