He was up about 7:30. I came up and we got in the couch bed. We headed down about 7:50. August started in to graphing instead of Minecraft. At first he was fine with that, but when i clarified he wouldn’t get his full morning dose of Minecraft if he kept graphing he realized the error of his way and switched to Minecraft. He ate oatmeal, and was able to stop before his time was up.
We got going and to Shani’s at 9. They started with the stretchy swing. He tried it more and got to standing in it a couple times. She was able to coax him back several times. He was wearing his elements shirt and she asked what element he would be: “If I was an element I d explode or I wouldn’t do anything, like iron, or I’d be a gas and float away.”
When they were done with that he showed her the circle equation on the graphing calculator, then went to the table to write numbers. She thanked him for complimenting her on her handwriting last time. He didn’t really like being complimented, then found it funny that she was complimenting him for complimenting her. He worked on 6s, and he commented on how it looked like a b and they worked on the difference. August showed her the pumpkin made from a lowercase d and b, from when i was helping him read the difference. We talked about starting to teach him lowercase letters, or whether she should start with upper case. August showed her the game sprouts and we talked about it.
Shani talked about wanting him to always be more intentional/clean when putting things on paper (he was rather loose in his sprout drawing). I rolled my eyes on the inside, and he complained a bit about how it would take longer. Think it will be like ‘proper’ piano playing – knowing he has to do it in lesson, and practicing at home, but knowing he doesn’t have to always do it. He went along with it though, then they did a connect-the-dots drawing together, using careful lines.
We talked about piano lessons, and I told her how Dalit and August are generally communicating well, but having a bit of difficulty between her Hebrew accent and his not pronouncing R. He got tired of the connect the dots and went and ran in circles while holding the swing. “Swinging is productive!”
She got him to do a few capitol As. Her husband was playing piano upstairs and he asked if he was playing ffff or ppp etc. While trying to focus on his writing he was distracted by the music and said, “I’m hypnotized by the music!” They then finished with a board sort of thing where he hammered thumbtacks in to hold shapes on to a board. August talked about how it was a dangerous game for babies.
We headed home and August got on Minecraft. Gilad was available soon after and they played for a little over an hour. August was noticing more ghost block issues, where he would explode TNT and a bunch of it would appear to not explode, but it actually had and he could walk through it. Randomly, while they were playing, he asked me, “What’s skeptical mean?” I don’t think Gilad had said it. So a word of the day. They finished at 11:20.
We were going to then head to the mall, but we were hungry so both had a piece of pizza, then he had a yogurt. He asked me, “How do you measure how powerful a bomb is?” So we learned about megatons and TNT equivalency. He then went on a long walkabout regarding a huge explosion to rip apart the galaxy. Bar and Baby Sister did it, then rewound time. He played piano, and said, “Do you smell b natural minor?” Didn’t know what to make of that. Not sure if he got a word wrong, or it was supposed to be funny in the course of the Brother and Sister game, but he wouldn’t talk any more about it. He was playing a line and asked if it sounded familiar to me, I said yes but couldn’t place. He said it sounded like part of the Llama Llama song and then I totally heard it.
We got walking at 12:15. As we got to the bridge he asked why we were walking, but didn’t complain. We were doing Brother and Sister games, and Baby Sister’s new hero is Calculator, after she learned Calculator could do something just by thinking it. When Bar was upset over her changing loyalties he had the best laugh ever.
Windy over the bridge and I carried him a bit. Really busy at the mall, as expected. We made it to Tiv Taam and got ingredients for chocolate chip cookies and a couple other things. While there he asked what finders keepers means and I explained, but then said it wasn’t so cut and dried, which was another new phrase for him. We then went to the Druze stand and he was excited about dolmas. We got two containers of those, and I got two of the sandwiches for the three of us for dinner later.
We walked outside and I stopped to get two containers of strawberries. We went in the playground and sat in one of the house things and ate dolmas.
We then walked home. He was asking me math questions, usually ones I could figure out, but not always. He said “Say paperulater when you can’t figure it out in your head.” For needing to do it on paper/a caculator later.
Back at home he did alone time as I got ingredients ready. We played Minecraft, then made chocolate chip cookies. When the song “I.B.L.U.D.” came on he liked it, but then said, “They’re leaving out notes.” It’s a song made of a lot of percussion, thing guitar, and kind of tuneless singing, so I think I know what he meant. He then got the synth app and showed me some sounds that he thought were the same way. They were sounds with a lot of fuzz to them, without distinct, clear notes.
Carly got home and he said “Happy Valentine’s Day!” We all had a cookie and milk, then he did a lot of graphing. He and carly played piano and I introduced him to the Notes sight reading app that I had found and he did a good job with that for a few minutes.
I went for a run and they had dinner. He had spaghetti and dolmas. I got back, and discussed digital library systems with Carly, as they’re trying to figure out audio books at school, and I taught August how to use the ‘polygon’ command in Desmos. I went up for a shower, and Carly managed to get him off screens. He agreed to a half hour. They graphed an equation on paper. “Oh! There could be tons of possibilities!” In graphs I taught him how to use tables to solve a series of equations (making, for example, a series of lines for y=bx+5 for different values of b)
Carly went up for a shower and I got him off the iPad again. We built with the new legos. I built a rover thing with claws. He ate more spaghetti, then was whiney about going upstairs, but managed.
Carly gave him a bath and I did dishes and was doing other things downstairs. She was reading Clementine to him, then at 9:10 he called down: “I putted her to sleep!” He came down, all proud, saying he never thought he’d put an adult to sleep, and that “I sang “You Are My Sunshine”.” “My kidding trick worked, like times a nonillion…savoring then.” That is, he had been postponing brushing his teeth by eating the Smarties that she had given him (she got them from students) really slowly.
Now that he was done with his kidding trick and ready to head to bed he ate them more quickly. We went in his room and read the How To chapter on digging a hole. Laborer, authenticity, and executed were words of the day. We learned all about the history of buried pirate treasure.
We listened to a Bedtime Explorer meditation, then asked what kind of music he wanted to listen to. He requested bass clarinet music, so I found an album called Ballads for Bass Clarinet. It turned out to be a nice jazz album. He liked it and was asleep by 10:25.
Crazy graphing in action:
One that makes the iPad go crazy:
Hammering activity:
Still laughing at the shark thing:
Song of the day:
Sight reading practice:
Watching mama practice:
