He was up at 7:30. Downstairs we today watched the short film “The Cat Came Back” https://www.nfb.ca/film/the-cat-came-back. He knows the song from preschool. Pretty funny, and I had to explain the ‘cats have nine lives’ saying at the end. We read Ben Braver, then headed upstairs for a lot of Brother and Millie. Brother developed his power, but it was a throwing power, but he wanted to change into animals like Millie. So he was mixing chemicals to do that.
We went downstairs for food. He had oatmeal and mangos. He played the Toca Elements app. When I made a suggestion he replied, “Now you’re cooking with gas.” That’s from the Lucky Beans book. We read the two Bob Books he’s working on, The King and Max and the Tom Cats with him doing a lot of the reading. We then played more chess before going up for more Brother and Sister. He’s acting out the part of Millie now, which is nice because he stopped being Sister and has just been the animals, which means he doesn’t say much. This was more of her helping Brother get a power. Then there was a full story where he was in PKA labeling boring angles, and she showed up, camoflauged. He said he “Changed bacon days to carrot days.” A Ben Braver reference. And he said, “I’m actually a girl. I’m called Millie instead of August.”
We went back downstairs. He said, “Dada, actually I changed my mind. I think we should get packing today.” He changed his countdown to a 4 in Mooka Mook. As he stepped away from the board he said, “Presenting… It’s stomach-looking.” I made chocolate pancakes and apples for lunch and we played Polytopia. I started to make angles on the ground by the kitchen door—an idea that Cherie had sent. Ran out of masking tape before I could make all of the angles I wanted, but we have 30, 45, 60, 90, 135, and 180 degrees.
We continued the Brother and Millie game, where he was bored, and then she turned into a dragon and took him to the nature reserve during rest time, then to a river. He accidentally caught her in a net when she turned into a fish. He asked what ‘stealthy slinking’ was. Either from Wild Kratts or Ben Braver. So ‘stealthy’ was a word of the day. He then returned to the Brother and Sister stranded on an island story, but this time had Millie be the whale that helped them to shore.
We went downstairs to play Prodigy Math. It gave him a series of area of rectangle problems, so he learned how to multiply those. As we got ready to go he told me, “When I transfer to peregrine falcon, just call me Torpedo.”
About 2:30 we headed to school. We sat on a bench and played Polytopia for a few minutes. Marka stopped and talked to me about podcasts for a few minutes, then Carly showed up. I realized August had been playing for more than 15 minutes and the timer screen should have come up. It had, when Marka was there, and he’d given himself more time since there’s no passcode for it on my phone. He thought that was pretty funny.
We all walked down and found Heather and Eve and Zoe on the preschool playground. I was going to walk home and work and Carly was going to stay with him there, then go swimming with him. But first, August couldn’t get on the big swing. Don’t know if he was having flashbacks to before or what, but he started to get sad. Carly comforted him, and he handled it well and she went over on the regular swing with him. I realized I didn’t know where his sunglasses were, and I went back to the bench and found them and took them back. He had recovered and was now playing with Eve.
I started walking home, and part way I got an email from Andrea with a little video from them for August and telling me his poncho and family photo (and, I would find, his pinch pot they had made months ago but kind of got lost, as they never finished them) were in a bag in his cubby. I turned around and walked back to the school and got that, and had about a ten minute talk with Marion and Vicky. So much for work time.
I did manage to get home and get a little done before they got home. August told me they had gone to both playgrounds, and they also went swimming. I didn’t really hear any other details.
When they got home August called up to me. He wanted to play a Brother and Millie game. So we went up and did that. He had a pretty full story for it: Brother had bought a popsicle and was walking home and was scared by a big snake. He tells Sister and they go back and catch it in a big container. In the container it starts to turn human, but then back into a snake. It manages to break out, and starts to squeeze brother. They hurt the snake, and it leaves and Brother has to go to the hospital.
Brother then sees her at school. She turns into the snake and bites her hand. He goes to the nurse. While he is alone there, the snake shows up. He screams, the nurse sees the snake, and the school goes into lockdown. He and the snake/girl talk. She was upset that they caught her and kept her in the box and hurt her, so that is why she bit him. They apologize to each other and become friends, and he helps her escape out the window.
We played chess on my phone, then some backgammon. Carly made a smoothie and brought it up to him, then we went down and ate schnitzel for dinner. August accidentally spilled the tray of the little ball things, which have now dried up and are tiny again, and hard to pick up.
He and Carly looked at the Solar System app and compared the sizes of the planets. We did the distances thing, and he said, “I made a satellite named Voyager 8. And you know ho many AUs it is? Astronomical units? 460…460 times away from the sun.”
I read someBen Braver, then we played Suspend Junior. He went to the bathroom, then was asking math questions that necessitated a calculator. I was typing them into the search on my phone. When he was done he wanted to do that as well. After he washed his hands we went upstairs to where he had plugged in his phone and I taught him how he could type * or x for multiplication.
We took showers, and after he was ready for bed I was going to read to him. We didn’t get that far though, as he tried to start playing Dragonbox Algebra. It took a few minutes to get him to part with the iPad without getting really upset. Carly took over to put him to sleep. She told him he did a good job chasing away the chook. He told her she couldn’t talk about the chook: “And definitely not in public. It’s private…Dont talk about it. And don’t talk about feelings…” But as I left I heard him relenting, as long as he could talk about her feelings first. I left them at 9:10.
Blue hands:
His space probes:
Silly math problems:
Silly math problems 2:
