OMG that is so totally true about the history repeating!
and re: imaginary games - literally yesterday DD5 was making up these elaborate stories to go with word problems... 'OK, so i'm out in the yard with my sheep. you need to take 9 sheep from my ones column, but i only have two. so i go into the barn where my sheep are organized by 10s. i bring ten out, which gives me 12 to work with. then you take the nine, leaving me with three. on to the next column...' and then it's a story about aliens going to surgery...
ALL THIS when we already know she does high-number regrouping subtraction in her head... ha, although maybe this IS how she does it in her head - narration and all!
