The Magic Carrot/La Carota Magica

Yesterday morning, one of the Summer Camp kids showed up, as he normally does, with breakfast for our guinea pig, Chi Chi Alla.

"E' una carota...magica."

"Oooooooooooh!" I marveled, "a magic carrot! What does it do?!"

 "Puo' spostare le cose pesante," he replied.
I grabbed a large piece of paper and called everyone to the carpet.  This was clearly a story worthy of a shared writing experience.

Each kid contributed a sentence. Turned out to be a pretty good story.

We hung it up on the wall, and during math time we talked about how carrots can be all sorts of colors--including yellow, white, and even purple.  Then we painted some carrots...the kids chose their favorite carrot color to paint their particular carrots.  After that, we made a graph of carrot colors.

...and during writing time we highlighted the letter "Cc" and the sound it makes.

"It's kinda like an O that's not finished," one kid announced. 

"Yep," I agreed.

The real magic is the learning that happens when kids' natural curiosities and ideas are respected...

and the experiences that take place in the learning environment are all connected.