He was up at 7:10. I read some poems to him. He then asked about shovels in Minecraft and we looked them up. He told me, “I had an insane crazy dream, but I don’t remember what it is.” He walked in circles telling me about his “vehicles update” for Minecraft. It also includes super weapons and robotic houses. And cost over a thousand dollars. He started playing Minecraft. He said, “Don’t be upset, but I’m not going to play with you.” He was playing in the the Lonely Forest, one of the worlds we downloaded last night. But after a while he wanted to play with me in one of our shared worlds. Plateau and rendering were words of the day.
He had oatmeal, and we read Ponyville Mysteries #5. We then watched episode 21. We went out and checked on the vines. Back inside there was a Brother and Bar game with them playing Minecraft. We discussed our day. He wanted to learn about binary and go to the weight room at school. We made a plan, but then he immediately wanted to do more Brother game instead. I pointed out that wasn’t what we had just discussed and he replied, “Oh no, I keep messing up. I have so many ideas in my brain…” We did more Brother Minecraft game. He found a Bat in the game. Then a Storm Monster.
Then music time. He set up drums and was playing rhythms. He chanted “getting more complicated.” Just caught the end of that on video. He was then controlling drones with the keyboard. He had a pencil and paper and was then designing a new musical instrument. His paper was a checklist of the features it was going to have and he was going to check them off (well, he does Xs). He told me that Brother goes to a school where they do coding. He had me working on the instrument. Then there was more more Brother and the Bat in Minecraft.
We had pizza and pomegranate for lunch. Then watched SciShow kids videos after a video about binary numbers. We then did reading time, and August read a bunch of short books on the new reading app, Rivet, which we downloaded based on an ad. But it is also free, and August clicked with it really well. It is nice that the books are really short, and leveled.
He then played with the recorder during alone time. I exercised, and paused to teach him how to hold it. He ws starting to blow and change notes by the end. We played Minecraft and went back to our first creative world. He wants to make an underground sheep habitat.
Then a Brother game where August pointed out that Brother is afraid of everything, and that he needs “scare practice.” We discussed ways of learning music, but didn’t come to strong conclusions about what he wants to do. He ended up playing with the Musyc app, which we haven’t done for quite a while. I explained generative music as opposed to composed or improvised.
We finally got going to school. He told me about his incredible nuclear bomb on the way, after first asking about the bomb shelters and what they would protect from.
We got to swimming and did some math and spelling practice. Carly showed up and swam with us. He got out and played with Omri. He spent quite a while looking at the sun reflecting off of the pool and making rainbows. He said, “It looks like DNA strands.”
We got home about 5:15 or so. He ate some of the sushi and we read issue 1 of the Spirit of the Forest My Little Pony special series. We then played Minecraft and had pomegranate seeds. He then had pistachios while Carly was outside, but she was nice enough to let him keep eating them when she came in. We listened to the new UNKLE songs. He then ate an egg salad sandwich half.
We watched videos on why you faint (he had asked) and how GPS coordinates work. We were going to look for one on how pencils were made, as he had asked about how pencils work earlier.
After the GPS video he wanted an app that would show him the lines of latitude and longitude. I downloaded Google Earth on his ipad and we played with the “Cool geographic app” for a while. As he played he sang a song that went, “One day penguins should fly. When they evolved.”
We went upstairs to play a Bar and Brother where he finds a Bat again. As we went up, August said in a very creepy voice, “Did somebody say ‘Bad dreams?’” He talked about how much he likes the mandala again: “I like that…it’s not entirely symmetrical, I know…the tiny dots.”
He went to the bathroom, and told Carly about his legs and why muscles grow. In the pool he had told me about how his legs are sore every time after we swim. I told him that was because of the exercise, and I also told him about how muscles are actually damaged when we exercise, but then your body creates new cells to fill the space between the cells that have been pulled apart, and this is how muscles get bigger. He explained all of this now to Carly.
After his bath, I started putting him to sleep. As I sang “Imaginary Bars” he inserted the lines, to the tune, singing:
“Jumped off the highest peak
Then I got a pelican beak”
He tried starting an argument with me again. There was a lot of laughing as I left them at 9:05 and went for a run.
Expansion ideas for Minecraft:
Designing a new music machine:
His special keyboard:
Drumming:
More drumming:
Looking at the water of the pool:
