Will you marry me?

The past couple weeks in reading, our weekly stories have centered around fairytales, fractured fairytales and folktales. One of the parents was so kind to send in three fractured fairytales to share with the class. Today I read them the book, "Prince Cinders." This was a very cute book and the children loved it, but it brought up some smaller discussions.

First off, Prince Cinders wanted to be big and hairy. The children thought this was so funny, but my honest Regina announces to the class that she doesn't like men who are big and hairy. Which then causes a new problem, because some of the boys speak up and say that their father is big and hairy. In a fourth grader's mind, a fourth grade child will take what Regina has said and translate it to mean: Regina thinks their fathers are ugly. Cosmas on the other hand announced to the class that he would like to be big and hairy, in fact he also adds he now his first chest hair!

The children calm down and we continue with our story. If you have not read Prince Cinders, you will have to check this book out from your local library because it is a great read. Not wanting to tell you the entire book, I will just have to skip to the end. Of course like many other Cinderella tales, Prince Cinders will have to meet his princess and get married. The difference though is that the princess proposes to Prince Cinders. Right away majority of the children have a problem with this, this is not how it is supposed to work. Agnes though ponders this thought and says, "When I get older and I'm of marrying age, if I have dated a guy and he hasn't proposed by a certain time, I'm going to ask him."

Majority of the students respond to Agnes, "WHAT!?!, but the guy is supposed to propose."

Raphael thinks about this and goes against the class and says, "Well, if a girl comes to me and says will you marry me and I like her, I think I probably would say yes."