He got up just before 8. I went up and he was in clam position on the couch bed. We got under the covers for a few minutes. As soon as we got downstairs the power went out for a minute. It was back on soon though and we played Minecraft, then got ready and ate and headed to Shani’s.
He had taken his two rocks with quartz in them. They have become his most treasured rocks. I think they are the ones he got when we went to the JFK memorial. He showed them to Shani, and we discussed her trip to Warsaw. They had fun, but it was cold and her kids aren’t used to that. They had ended up going to two huge trampoline places. She used the phrase “went away” a couple times to talk about her trip, and August said, “Went away also means dying…So did you die and were brought back to life?” I’m not sure where he learned that euphemism. He was playing on the rope swing and was saying a lot of “Anyway” when he didn’t want to help untangle the ropes, and he didn’t want me to tell her “about that horrible party” on the weekend when I was telling her about jumping places we’ve been.
He wanted to show her the graphing calculator, but eventually they moved on to the plan and moved to writing. Nice to see how he gets into it now. He did shapes with stencils and doodled on the page and was doing math on his own. Forgot that sheet of paper there at the end. She tried to teach him a trick with his fingers for multiplying by 9. He was really resistant, for some reason. As they worked on math he multiplied 14 by 10 in his head, then easily added 140 and 14 in his head. She introduced him to a little notebook with squares for writing in and he wrote numbers in there. He decided to practice 7 and 1 (well, 11) today. When she complimented him for staying in the box he said, “I have a good technique.”
She then pulled out the magic board, which is a board where you sort of sew a yard into a plastic grid, then there is a really satisfying sound when you pull the yard out. When they started he said, “I hate sewing…Just kidding, I love sewing.” She wanted him to use all of the yard before pulling it out and he said, “Well I’ll do my best. I don’t guarantee I’ll use all of it.” She was getting him to hold the needle thing properly and explained it was for getting stronger with his fingers. We returned Rush Hour. She has another game for us to try next week and borrow, as they ran out of time for it this week. Before we left though he showed her the graphing calculator app, and we discussed his math level with her.
On our way to the car he tried to remember how he learned about the graphic calculator. He asked if it was that guy named Mike. I didn’t know who he was talking about, but then he described Peter and Micah visiting Chelan this summer and Micah having his graphing calculator and telling us about Desmos. So Micah gets credit for sparking this interest. August, talking about how he’s figured out how to add in the letters to his equations, said, “I knew when I grew up I’d know how to use all that complex stuff.”
At home we walked around the yard a bit. We discovered that his baby scum in the bottle of water has sort of fallen apart and started to dissolve. Inside, he had a piece of French toast. We then made a deal for Minecraft time, letting him do some of the alone time after. We played Minecraft, then watched a couple Life Noggin videos, including one on how to catch a snake in your house, which he really liked. He then had a Brother game where he needed to go to the bathroom on a subway (there’s a Life Noggin, which he didn’t watch yet, about why subways don’t have bathrooms that was the inspiration).
I went to do dishes and realized there was no water. August got worried and hid under the blanket. I went to check outside and realized they were doing some work up the street. I talked to David both about the work (he said it was because of all the rain we’ve had) and the leak to our water pipe, which led to a discussion of Shmuel and him still being gone. David said a few things about how it is nice that Shmuel is gone, and not having to talk to him (and maybe he meant the construction noise) and that if we get lucky maybe Shmuel will decide to stay in Florida for a year or two. Not sure how much he was joking or really being critical of Shmuel.
Back inside August played piano. He played “London Bridge” and his “Spooky Song” and “Just a Little Love” in different keys. For alone time he was playing chords and making new synth sounds. He then wanted to do math, but first did a show and tell at school game (Brother’s class) where he showed off the keyboard and then graphing calculator. In math we basically made sure we finished off the 1st grade skills, then went searching for where coordinate systems are introduced. We checked in on some bar graph/dot graph things along the way, but they seemed pretty easy, until we finally found introduction to coordinate systems at 5th grade. We did the 5th grade section on that and he found it super easy. So, next time it will be on to 6th grade.
We stopped for now though and I made us grilled cheese with turkey and avocado for a late lunch. He had a Sister game with her getting hurt in Bar’s lab. He now did his second set of alone time, playing piano, after first showing me cool chords first. I went to the bathroom, then went back to the couch. August had known I was in the bathroom, but was then focused on playing. A few minutes later he was surprised, and said “You like teleported.”
We played Minecraft, then he played more piano. When he wanted to do another Brother and Sister game, and play Monster Physics, I told him we had to do one of my activities first: MEL Chemistry or reading. He first suggested math instead, but we ended up doing some music, discussing (a little) how chords are built. Discordant was a word of the day. He then talked me into his educational video, specifically requesting “What Happens if You Go to Bed Angry?” on Life Noggin.
He drew on the chalkboard a bit, then asked, “What does ‘easier said than done’ mean?” We then got to science time, opening the latest set from MEL Chemistry. The two experiments are about glowing things. One requires us to buy something, so we went to the other one, which involves heating two powders with a fire to make them glow. We needed a dark spot so we used the bathroom and called it a “bathroom of science.” The experiment went well, and August then wanted to just burn some paper. So we did a little inside, burning it in the glass jar. We then moved outside and burned a couple more pieces in the old metal bucket. In talking about the burning he said, “It’s like a trade off: you’re burning fuel but gaining light.”
Before Carly got home I had agreed to do 15 minutes of Monster Physics with him. That went well, and Carly got home. But when he was done he then demanded educational videos. It was a meltdown from there, as I told him he didn’t get extra video time after extra iPad time.
I did some dishes, Carly got him calmed down and we got him some dinner (rice dish, hummus, pita, and she made cauliflower) and I went upstairs and worked for close to a couple hours. I think they did some more math, then Carly gave him a bath, then was reading the Comic Science: Plagues book to him when I took over.
We read some of What If? then listened to the latest Circle Round, “The Very Busy Fairies”, which was quite funny, then did one meditation in the series before listening to the Bach Cello Concertos. He was asleep a bit earlier, around 10:20.
Sewing thing with Shani:
Chords song on toy piano:
Piano alone time:
Zinnie cam: burning paper trade off:
Zinnie cam: preparing the chemistry experiment:
Burning paper:
The burning experiment in the dark:
Burning for science:
