He slept through the night, but got up at 7. I took him in his room and he lay down with his head towards the foot of his bed, despite me pointing out his pillow was at the other end. I covered him with the brown blanket as he was laying on the other one, and then went back up at 7:45 to wake him up. I carried him downstairs where he back asleep under the grey blanket.
Our plans for today included:
Research kaleidoscopes
Send video and photos to Mr. Minke
Ingredients for Cookies
Make cookies
Deliver cookies
Library
Play after school
We worked on several of those, but didn’t get cookies made or delivered, and didn’t quite finish things for Minke.
He finally got up about 8:15. We took a few minutes, then played Minecraft. As we started to play he said he had just made up a poem called “The boy who loved boys”. It went:
Once there was a boy
Who loved a boy
Who loved a boy
who loved a boy
Who loved a boy
Who, surprisingly
Loved a boy
Who loved a boy
who loved a boy
…that smelled like the ugly goose
He sang tunes as we played on our survival world. When we were done I made cereal and strawberries. As he waited and ate he watched educational videos: Kurzgesagt on the moons of Mars and on organic food, and CGP Grey’s “Fable of the Dragon Tryant”. Which is an allegory about how humans should slay death/disease/etc. but we didn’t really discuss that at the end.
Instead, we moved into Brother stories, with Brother working in Bar’s lab. Then, he wanted to do some of our old stories, explaining: “It’s like a mixtape of stories we’ve already done.” I do not know when/where he learned mixtape. He wanted a new version of meeting Millie. This time, instead of meeting her in the park he’s playing Minecraft and Millie is a lizard 🦎 in his house.
He then wanted his iPad time before he did alone time. We entered into long negotiations which involved him getting a calculator and doing lots of math, trying to divide things in half and thirds, etc. Eventually, he offered to do 20 minutes of alone time, as long as he could divide it into 5 minute chunks with breaks. So he did 5 minutes, then we spent some time hanging up art in his gallery together. 5 more minutes, then we did KN words using the Preschool Prep video for it and our cards. He was hungry so we took extra time to eat crackers and pate. He was looking at the Vile Verses book and we read from there, starting with Mr. Unworthy, then worked backwards from the end. He then did 5 more minutes of alone time.
That brought him to 15, and I let him off of the last 5, give how late it was already getting. We played 30 minutes of Minecraft, and he then watched Kurzgesagt videos on the moons of Neptune and on designer babies while I cut up an avocado and strawberries for lunch. He had a Brother and Bar game involving some elevator space ship and orbiting really fast. He was comparing it to the spiral ladder at the playground.
We left at 12:55. On the drive up to town we listened to “Rocket Man”. He said he remembered that song, and asked if it was a remix. When I said it wasn’t he said, “Oh. I didn’t remember the grand piano.” We parked behind the small grocery store next to VIPizza and went in. He of course saw the donuts right by the front door, and I told him he could choose one when we left.
We got to shopping. He said he remembered getting us back into pomegranates after seeing the pomegranates on a juice carton. We finished shopping and he chose a beautiful donut. I asked if he was eating it right away or save it for the park or something and he told me something about how he was a kid and of course he was going to eat it.
Back at the house he played in the yard and we looked at plants. We got rid of the little weed branch that he had brought from across the school a couple months back and we had planted but it didn’t make it. So with a small pot full of dirt he suggested we go find another random plant to plant. We went across the street and dug up an interesting-looking plant that was sprouting. We planted it, and he watered it. As we went inside he said, “My strategy is cooler than mama’s for getting plants.” Because his is more of a surprise and doesn’t cost money.
We then spent a long time on music. It started with him wanting to review his songs he recorded for Mr. Minke to choose which to send to him. But then he had the idea of me writing notes for him to play on the piano. We were out of the paper that Carly had printed, so I was going to use the Notion app, but then he decided we should sort of switch, and instead of me writing notes for him to play, he would sing and I would transcribe them. And as we started that he decided this would be for Mr. Minke. It went really well and we worked on it for a long time. He had a piano melody with bass drum backing. He then added another instrument, an organ. I had to do a little more with that one, as he liked chords but doesn’t know how to add them. What I did was simply have the organ play the bass note of each chord. We were very close to finishing, but he decided he was done for now, and we could finish later.
There was also a snack and Brother game in there, I’m sure, and we finally left to head to school around 4. As we walked out he saw weeds on the edge of our fake grass and said, “Look, weeds is sprouting in our grass. It’s so silly.”
At the library we returned the Prelusky book and I grabbed a bunch of mythology-related graphic novels and chapter books and another Prelusky book, Something BIG Has Been Here.We spent a few minutes looking at the books and ended up with Stickman Odyssey, Have a Hot Time, Hades!, Zeus: King of the Gods, The Sisters Grimm: The Fairy Tale Detectives, and Beasts of Olympus: Hound of Hades.
We went to check those out. August had been asking how many books the library has, and I told him he should ask Ms. Amanda. So he did. She invited him behind the desk (it was interesting to see how reluctant he was to go to the other side; it was like he knew that was off-limits, but I don’t remember ever telling him he couldn’t go back there) and showed him on the computer screen: Carly has 147 books checked out right now (most for her classroom library, but we probably have about 20), there are over 33,000 titles, and over 41,000 books in total. He was impressed.
Carly showed up as that was going on, and Amanda also gave him a couple bookmarks that smell like candy canes. Carly had checked out a bunch of books about the immune system and August got very excited about those as we walked towards the exit. She got Parasites, The Immune System, Why Do My Eyes Itch?, Your Body Battles a Stomachache, and Your Body Battles a Cold. August exclaimed, “This is as good as a squirt gun on my birthday!” Apparently he wants a squirt gun for his birthday.
Carly headed home, walking, and dropped some stuff in the car. August had wanted to go down to the playgrounds to read down there and see if there were any kids. There wasn’t though, and he decided to just head home. As he talked about Carly getting immune system books he said, “She like readed my mind!” She had also checked out a book for her students called Shipwrecked! The True Adventures of a Japanese Boy. We looked at it in the car and he was really interested in it, and didn’t believe it was about a real person being shipwrecked.
While we were down on the playgrounds he also found a soccer ball and kicked it around a bit (and set it on a bush) and requested a soccer ball for his birthday to kick around. That’s a change.
We drove home, and Carly walked up at the same time as we got out of the car. Inside they read Your Body Battles a Cold and part of another book. He did his alone time, and paused his timer to do a few things, like try out the new hair cutting scissors, and we worked on his composition for several minutes, adding a new section at the end. He finished his alone time and played Minecraft with Carly. He said, “I’ll just modify it…” He had learned modify but then also asked what it meant, so a word of the day.
He ate some dinner, then started making a whole set up in the kitchen where he was falling on pillows. It turned into an acting thing, where he was tripping over something to fall. He added pillows to the size, and decorated the floor with blankets. He had me take videos of him falling to see which looked best.
He then had the idea to make something out of recycling. We all cleaned up the falling arena first. He was also misinterpreting Carly’s tone a couple of times, thinking she was being critical when she was joking about something. He then got started on his plastic creation. He asked us to save more recycling for him and ask him before we recycle it. He told us it was a device that separates liquids. Where the liquid came from is a mystery.
They then read Your Body Fights a Stomachache. He tried the cracker getting sweet trick, but it didn’t work with our crackers. Feces was another word of the day. I then read him much of the Stickman Odyssey book, where prophecy and odyssey were new words.
We went upstairs at 9. He spent a long time in the shower making suds and washed himself. Said good night to Carly, had his Cheerios, brushed his teeth, and was in bed at 9:35. We did Brother games, another with Tigey liking french fries, and one with Brother having athletes foot. We listened to a Circle Round story, “Maushop and Grandfather Sun”, I think, and then a Ninja Focus track and he was asleep around 10:15.
Singing and Minecraft:
Dancing in the grocery store:
Listening to his work in progress:
Jumping on the couch chant:
His tripping station:
Improving his tripping:
