Published Author

During her first year in elementary school K-bao made significant progress with her writing, to the point where she officially "published" several short works. Near the end of the school year, the K-folks spent a morning at K-bao's school learning a bit more about her journey as an author. She has come a long way from the when she self-published her first book in late 2014.

The works pictured above include a narrative of her first soccer game, a spooky story about an evil witch, a poetry anthology, and most recently a non-fiction work about her favorite animal, the horse (in a 3-way tie for first place, along with ponies and unicorns).

For the book about horses, K-bao had to spend some time researching her subject. In the process, she learned about the physiology of the horse (205 bones!) as well as distinctions among breeds. (By the way, the reader with a long memory might recall this early post in 2009, when K-bao was first exposed to horses. Clearly her interest has grown quite a bit since then.)

Naturally, the fact that K-bao loves to read has been quite helpful in her overall progression. Over the past year she has devoured countless short chapter books about detectives, rainbows and fairies, ponies and other related topics. It is also certainly true that K-bao's school and first grade teacher have actively fostered in K-bao's class a sense of authorship and a pride in writing.

Real Artist

Besides singing and dancing, one of K-bao's other favorite activities is painting. Over the summer we've had a few occasions to let the girls hang out for an afternoon on the patio and let loose with the brushes.

"I'm a real artist," K-bao likes to say dramatically, while painting big, bold strokes on the page, and pouring various unrelated colors together to create new hues.

When the girls are together painting, there's never a quiet moment of reflection or concentration. It's a never ending stream of chatter. queries, bantering.

"Did you see this color I mixed?" "Can you please not take that pink?" "No, you need to clean your brush first!" "Look at this purple flower!" "I'll trade you this brown for that yellow alright?" "This is very abstract." (Yes, K-Pop really heard that word being thrown around a few times).

Peter and the Wolf

Readers of this blog know well both the theatrics and theatricality of little K-bao. Over the summer the K-folks decided to give K-bao a taste of real theater, and enrolled her in a one week theater camp. The culmination of the week was a musical performance of Peter and the Wolf.

K-bao was assigned (or fought for, unclear which) the part of the Wolf. In the play, the Wolf is described as a "misunderstood character." K-bao shows us her fierce wolf face below.

There were some cute songs in the production. Below the Wolf makes its nefarious entrance. K-bao tries to keep a smile off her face as she thinks about pouncing on the silly duck. The cast then breaks into a song about food.


Her favorite song in the production was the Hokey Pokey.



Whether this camp is a first step towards Hollywood remains to be seen (we hope not). What is clear already though is our little one's love for performance, music and drama.