Kathryn is currently working on a high-school level paper using an online program. I’ll write more about her experience once she has completed the program, but for today, I’m sharing a little throwback. Can you tell imminent grandmotherhood is making me extra-sentimental?

This story from nine-year-old Kathryn made me giggle, so I thought I’d share with you. This was inspired by an assignment in The Write Stuff Adventure by Dean Rea. {I’m thinking I should dig this out to use with Scout next year. I think she’d love it.}

All spelling and punctuation is exactly as Kathryn wrote it. She never studied proper punctuation usage; her knowledge is based entirely on Charlotte Mason’s ideas of learning things like grammar and punctuation naturally through the reading of good literature.

Relevant to the story: the “black thing” is Ken’s camera, because he takes photos of anything remotely interesting around here.

. . . . .

Once, there was a spider named Sam. He was a house spider, but one day a huge black thing came, made weird noises, and then took poor Sam outside. It had just snowed, and Sam was very cold. He had never been so cold in his life. He remembered a song his mom sang when Sam was a baby called “The Itsy-Bitsy Spider.” It was a song about his great-great-great grandfather and his life. So Sam made that his theme song for his life. Sam headed for the nearest leaf, and when he got there, he started to work on his book again. He was writing a novel called, “A Spider’s Life.” This story was about a spider named Fred, a ball of yarn, a girl spider named Angel, and a spoon. Sam was an educated spider, and he loved to write, so he always had a pencil, pen, pencil sharpener, and two or three dollars to buy more pencils or paper. Safe from the snow still falling, Sam soon fell asleep. The next morning, the snow was gone, and it was sunny, so Sam crawled out from under his leaf, made his way back to the house, got inside, and was reunited with his family, and there he lives today.

. . . . .

Ken is kinder to insects than I am, and if I remember correctly, he had relocated a spider the day before Kathryn wrote this story — which reinforces my idea that unless you squish the critter, it’ll eventually end up back in the house!

Jamie

Wife, mom, J-ma. Introvert who enjoys good books, sunshine, and authentic conversation. Often seen with a steaming mug of tea in hand – unless it’s lost yet again in the microwave. Read more »