Stories of K

- This summer she has taught herself to whistle (breathing in) and to snap her fingers. 

- She has become a very good reader and seems to like the nonfiction section of the library the best.  She has an extremely active mind, turning over and over the random information she's memorized.  She quotes various lines, often with a "why is that?" tacked on as she tries to find places for the things she learns in the hierarchy of her thinking.  Favorite books have been about measurement (telling T:  "Let's see how many cubits you are!"),  soap you can make, space, insects, what the quantity one million looks like, and many more. 
When we started homeschooling, I bought a copy of What Your Kindergartner Needs to Know, intending to use it as part of my curriculum.  Since Five in a Row is so thorough, I ended up using it very little and when we finished for the year I gave her the book to examine on her own.  So the other night, after putting her to bed I stopped to look out the window at the sun setting on the hills instead of going right downstairs like usual.  After a few moments I heard a rustle in the hall.  Going around the corner, I found K startled at me finding her reading the Kindergartner book, curious to see what happens next to Little Red Riding Hood.  I wonder if she'll be a flashlight under the covers kind of child.

- She often makes up words for things with unknown names.  The wispy parachute seed (see, I don't know the name for it  either) of a weed that reminds me of a dandelion on steroids is a "flimanimee".

- She has a strange kind of psychic ability to want to do the same things I've taken it into my head to do, though I've mentioned them to no one.  Make pancakes.  Go swimming.  Make an apple pie (I've been planning to do this when we row How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World this fall).  Put new pictures up in her room.  (After hounding me for weeks to do this, when I finally got the specially chosen butterfly picture hung, she was so busy playing she hardly noticed.  Though she smiled and said Yay!  when I pointed it out to her.)  

- Occasionally, she'll say something that melts my heart.  One night while getting ready for bed, after she had just asked her hundredth "why" question, I asked in exasperation, "Why do you ask so many questions that if you thought about it, you already know the answer to them?" 
"I forget to do what the book says," she answers. 
"What book?"
"The one that says think before you speak.  I always forget to do that."