Where would YOU go tonight if you had the chance to take a MAGIC carpet ride?

Today we only had 1/2 of the kids we had most of the week come to playgroup...and we got sooooooo much accomplished. Imagine if all the teachers all over the world were only responsible for the academic and social development of four kids. Utopia!

Anyhoo, as I've mentioned many times before on this blog, The English Schoolhouse proudly sells Barefoot Books here in Rome. I read aloud one of my favorite Barefoot stories, My Granny Went to Market, with the schoolhouse kids this morning.

The illustrations are fabulous, and the text is great as well. The story follows a granny that takes her magic carpet (which she snagged in Turkey) all over the world.

The schoolhouse kids and I talked about all the ways to read a story...including looking at the images/illustrations...

And reading the words...
(in the doc program it was called "concepts of print")...That was the reading workshop lesson.

Then we played a quick game. I pointed to either an illustration or a word and they had to label it correctly using "word" or "illustration".
They got it.

We read the story, and then Noah had a brilliant idea. "We could make a magic carpet!" he shrieked.

So we did.

We ripped off some paper from the roll under the art easel

glued a couple of strips together

cut the edges

knew it was time to stop when the spills started happening

added some glue dots

a bit of yarn

tassles, darling

That's a magic carpet for sure.

For kicks I asked the kids where they would go if they could really take a magic carpet ride at that very moment. The answers were as follows:

Kid 1: America
Kid 2: the park with the rides
Kid 3: America
Kid 4: someplace with lots of boats

And you? Where would you go?

Back to school week, by popular demand, has been extended into next week. We'll have an adventure on our magic carpet on Monday. I'll let you know where we go and how it goes.