An exchange between myself and Cricket in the car this weekend while she was looking at a dinosaur book (keep in mind that she just started Kindergarten 2 weeks ago):
Cricket: What’s a quadriped, Daddy?
Me: A quadriped is any animal that walks on four legs.
Cricket: What about ones that walk on two legs?
Me: They would be called bipeds.
Cricket: Oh, okay.
[pause]
Cricket: I have a hypothesis that most dinosaurs were quadripeds.
Me: Okay. What does the word hypothesis mean? [just testing her]
Cricket: Its an idea that I can test.
Me: And how do you plan to test this idea?
Cricket: By looking at pictures in my book, Daddy.
I cannot take full responsibility for this – I think she learned a number of these words from a new show she has been watching called Dinosaur Train. But the extent to which her thirst for knowledge has been amped up recently is phenomenal. Hopefully this will lead her toward learning to read more readily than her interest in it has betrayed recently. Once that door is open to her, there is no telling where she’ll go next. But it is an exciting journey to watch.