If you give a pig a pancake...

All of you with young children are most likely familiar with the book, If You Give a Pig a Pancake...

I watched this unfold in my house today...

If you give unschooled children some paper, scissors, glue and markers and ask them if they want to make Thank you notes for Christmas....they might say yes, and while they are working away and having fun...if you put on the soundtrack to the Polar Express...they might get up and start building a train out of the kitchen chairs and trying to get the large sheepdog Elwood and the retreiver Bella to come, "ALL ABOARD"....and when that becomes an unsurmountable task...they might start creating their own dance routines, one hip hop and one creative movement (I'll let you guess which kid did which dance)...then they might find their way back to the table to finish the thank you notes...or they might decide that dot to dot books are sooo much fun...and if you put some grapes on the table for a snack...it most likely will turn into a competitive math game to see how many grapes one can fit in his or her mouth at one time...which leads Mom to talk about choking...which leads them to run and get the Somebody game and look at the "two pipes" leading from your mouth the esopagus which goes to your stomach and the trachea which leads to their lungs...which leads to a demonstration of the Heimlich Maneuver...which then digresses into a contest of throwing the grapes into the air to see if they can catch them in their mouths and at the same time keep them away from Bella and Elwood because we just learned that green grapes are toxic to dogs....which then leads to a discussion of gravity...which then leads into a theater of what it would be like to throw grapes in space to try to catch them..which makes one of them think of the spaceship toy at our local park...so we end up at the park and while we are swinging...they began to wonder when the first swing was made...which turns into a deep discussion of the possibilities of re-incarnation and if only they could remember when they were cavemen...when the swings ran their course.... They challenged each other to a race aroung the ballfield...when they became out of breath and asked why...they learned about carbon dioxide and oxygen and the positive effects of deep, slow breathing...which reminded one of them about the trachea and the lungs...which reminded the other one about the grapes....and home we ended up eating grapes snuggling in bed getting warm,watching Postcards from Buster who was highlighting some young fabulous hip hop kids dancing...which brought us back downstairs...to the Polar Express CD...one more time.....

And we were happy...no frustration...no yelling...no expressionless faces when it was time to do school. I know they learned more today..and the learned it their way.

I am sold.