Chronicles of Narnia Activities for The Magician’s Nephew

 

We’re currently reading The Chronicles of Narnia series as a family read-aloud.  We have chosen to read them in chronological order, so the posts with our Narnia activities will follow this sequence:

• The Magician’s Nephew
• The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
• The Horse and His Boy
• Prince Caspian
• The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
• The Silver Chair
• The Last Battle

We finished reading the first book last week and I’m finally getting around to sharing the activities for The Magician’s Nephew (affiliate link).  We’ve ended up having so much packed into our school weeks, that I really had to cut back my plans.  Then I started running out of time, so I just focused on a few activities that tied into elements from the end of the book.

We began with comparing how Narnia was created (by Aslan singing) and the creation story from the Bible.  We spent some time talking about how God formed everything just by speaking.  This led to a great discussion about the power of words, that life and death come from the tongue.

 

After discussing the power of our tongues, I just had to do a variation of this toothpaste object lesson from Spell Outloud that I saw on Pinterest.  The toothpaste tube became our mouths and the toothpaste represented our words.

We talked about how we use words and what a mess they can make.  I told the kids that I would give $10 to the person who could put the “words” back in the “mouth”.

Well, if you have an industrious, young teenager in the house, you will have to be able to improvise quickly when they have a smart idea.  He found a medicine dispenser and started suctioning the paste back into the tube.  Clearly I should have laid out better parameters, eh?

I pointed out that even when we apologize and try to take back our words, we still have a mess.  And sometimes we can create an even bigger mess when we try to take our words back.  Then we quickly moved on before the smart guy could think of something else and I somehow found myself out of $10 and a failed lesson. 😉

 

We made an easy homemade English toffee recipe in honor of the toffee that Polly and Digory plant which grows into a toffee tree.  Hmmmm, perhaps we shouldn’t have used all that toothpaste up earlier…

 

The kids had some creative fun documenting their ideas when I asked, “If you could plant one thing to grow into a tree, what would it be?”  I used the free vertical story paper at Printable Paper.  They decided on a lego and a cupcake.  Our 2 year old joined in the fun with a blue tree. 🙂  This can easily be adapted into a creative writing assignment for older students.

 

The last activity we did was make a silver apple.  We covered a paper plate in aluminum foil and added a stem with leaves.  (Inspired by this apple craft.)  We tied in our earlier conversations about the power of words and our tongues with Proverbs 10:20 – The tongue of the righteous is choice silver; the heart of the wicked is worth little.  I think it also ties in great to the story when Jadis is trying to tempt Digory into disobeying Aslan in regards to the silver apple.

I’ve been working hard on my plans for The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and I’m really excited!  I think the kids will be also.  I hope I plan better so I can fit it all in this time.  If you don’t want to miss any of the posts in this series, be sure to sign up for free email updates!

If you are looking for more Narnia ideas, check out our popular free Chronicles of Narnia Resource Unit.  You’ll find free Narnia printables, lapbooks, crafts, and more!