Responding to young children’s natural playfulness can yield inspiring and unexpected results. That’s what Felix Chen and Karolye Eldridge discovered while teaching a 3rd grade unit on China.

Realizing how much the children enjoyed reading the book Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lynn, Felix and Karolye asked the children to write their own scripts based on the book.

The students also created their own puppets for a culminating performance. “The kids discovered talents and interests along the way,” said Karolye. “Some kids had incredible character voices. Some discovered they really liked making the puppets. A couple of kids turned out to be very good at organizing and stage managing.”

Felix sees this project as a great example of emergent curriculum. “With this age group we always know we’re going to do something creative and it depends when it fits in the curriculum. How big it becomes depends on their interest.”