This article from the NY Times gives an outline of a "theoretical" classroom. A place where reading and play are a priority! Children doing things like writing letters, telling stories, playing, listening, creating - being children! I liked it!
Here are my daughters and their friend. My ten year old was practicing her piano piece "The Song of Twilight" by Yoshinao Nakada and they decided to put words to the music. They thought the song sounded sad so they wrote a pretty sad story about a girl who had a lot of sadness in her life and how her heart was broken. If I had made the assignment they wouldn't have gotten the same enjoyment out of this activity.
