This happens so often that I am starting to count them in my day. The trip to band practice last week (about a 40 minute drive) was spent discussing what kinds of things you would need to survive if the world was suddenly overtaken by zombies. (13 year-old male. . .need I say more?) This conversation touched on everything from where you would want to live, what tools would be essential, how you could build traps and weapons (13 year-old male, again) and what BOOKS (surprise!) you might want to have with you. He read Hatchet last year and has been currently reading the sequels The River and Brian's Winter, so he thought those books would be particularly useful. He didn't mention needing his X-Box, but did acknowledge that his video game experience could be helpful as preparation for living in Zombie-land. We both enjoyed the conversation and I found myself feeling a bit proud that my son said that I might also be a pretty good zombie hunter - or at least be handy at stitching up everyone else's wounds from their late night zombie encounters. (He could have suggested I would be great bait for a zombie trap. So, I'll take that compliment.) But in that 40 minute conversation we touched on 6 or more subjects: reading comprehension, physics, nutrition, general science, math, and home economics. (haha)

On the drive home, we discussed if it could be possible that every person sees colors differently (I see purple where you see red, but we don't know it because we just know what we're "told" the color is.) In this discussion, we went all the way into how the brain perceives colors and how cones and rods work in the eye. We decided between ourselves that this is indeed possible, but we'll probably never know for sure. We also talked about black holes (Mom, there could really be a blackhole in your purse and you wouldn't know it! Yes son, I know it's there. It's called the VISA card.)

So, why does this happen in the car? Why not at the kitchen table when the books are open and the lessons laid out? Maybe it is the experience of the shared destination that opens the door. Maybe we're just trapped in the same small space and bored. Maybe it is because it doesn't "feel" like learning, or teaching for that matter. I'm thinking it's a little of each. Maybe it is how children all over the planet learn most of the time. . . when we're not looking.