I wish I could capture the sights and sounds in my house right now.  After reading the chapter in The Burgess Animal Book on Yap Yap the prairie dog, my three youngest children have spent the last hour after supper playing a new game.  You guessed it – “Prairie Dogs”!  

I’m listening and watching; and, in a way, they are unknowingly narrating for me as they play.  Belle lives with her baby prairie dog, Little Mister, in a burrow in the dining room (under the table), and Boo lives in her burrow in the livingroom (behind the love seat).  They come out to eat grass, get very excited at the prospect of rain (since it’s very dry where they live), and are ever on the lookout for owls and rattlesnakes.  Boo even has pillows set up as her mound at the entrance to her den (ie. a look-out tower), and she has put a blanket at the bottom of her burrow to act as the soft grass for her bed.  There’s lots of socialization going on in this prairie dog “town”!  Their dialogue is absolutely cracking me up.  I cannot get over the details they are remembering from our reading.  Belle says, “Oh, a puddle of water.  Let’s have a drink.”  Boo exclaims, “But we don’t need to drink water.  We get water from the grass we eat!”  This game is doing my heart good!  Learning can be FUN!