I woke him up at 8:15. “I made a famous gravity machine slash g machine.”
I read a couple chapters of Ben Braver, then he talked about why order of numbers matters in subtraction and division. We then played Minecraft. We had French toast for breakfast and watched Grian. link was a word of the day.
We planned his day. He said he wanted to learn in math, music, and writing. So we started with Dragonbox Algebra. It was starting to look more like actual math and he almost finished the last chapter. It was good, as it got him to think about opposite operations and simplifying, etc. Also, he had a tendency to rush and not apply operations to both sides and it was forcing him to remember that. He then did some graphing and we reviewed the hyperbolic equation. Tried figuring out the exp() function. Learned how to model an exponential function instead (https://youtu.be/dErjKCFakKo).
He played a lot of piano as well, and said, “Here’s why I don’t want to grow up with someone who has perfect pitch…he’d be stuck on music…he wouldn’t know about other stuff…Minecraft…” On piano he was playing “London Bridge” really fast. And he talked about wanting to see Dalit. He did some Piano Maestro and was singing “Bringing up the sunshine” as he played “Blue Danube” really slowly.
We were listening to a Spare the Rock, Spoil the Child podcast, that had an International Women’s Day theme. We discussed it a couple times, and the last song was called “If Girls Ruled the World” August took exception to this, arguing that girls could still have boy babies, and that the boys would fight for control. He then suggested that, “I’d rather have cancer rule the world.” Because then it would just kill everyone. Luckily, he changed his mind to a more positive, “Well, I’d rather have plants rule the world.”
We then listened to a Wow in the World about the mutation that caused blue eyes and melanin was a word of the day. We discussed hyperbolic functions some more and other math things, using Paper to show some examples. He remembered that he’d finished alone time (piano and podcast) and we played Minecraft. He watched the Kurzgesagt video “Black Hole Bomb”, which he has now watched several times. He told me about his black hole bomb in Minecraft.
He was my piano teacher for a while, then did more Piano Maestro, enough to earn a star in our system. We then did handwriting on paper. He mainly practiced A, M, and N. I was Ms. Safe for a while, then we did more math stuff, discussing the ration of ovals (since it isn’t pi) and then he cashed in for 30 minutes of iPad time since he’d earned 5 stars. We played, then he watched “The Secret Place Where Pilots Sleep” from Bright Side, which is a list of interesting facts about airplanes. He said, “I just can’t conceive it!” a few times today. A new favorite phrase.
When that was over we got headed to school, as we had our last bags of books to drop off. We dropped an old router we’d never taken apart off at the recycling box, then went and dropped the books off with Amanda. We went to look at books and I got The Last Kids on Earth book 4, and August discovered the Minecraft shelf of books for the first time. He took out Minecraft by Concrafter and we read parts of it. He was particularly excited by the trick that might let us spawn mobs upside down.
He needed to use the bathroom, so we got going and checked out the books. More talk of the Minecraft blocks on the wall. We then headed down to the playgrounds. We went to the big one. He played on his own for a while, jumping from the platform and swinging on the bar, then climbing up into the crawly thing as well. He had a bar and some corn crackers for a snack. We read some How To and did Brother and Sister games. We went over on the swing for a while and he told me about singularities. His eyes were being itchy. Finally, he went on the spinning thing and joked about being invisible (harkening back to Sophia being invisible on it during hide and seek). We also talked about the physics of it, as the Kerns had taught him how to speed up and slow down.
We got going, using the bathroom by the library, then were looking at the stuff in the grass area. Heather came out, and we talked to her for a few minutes. He also told her about a black hole bomb. She told us how they were keeping the girls at school for the week, as Eve’s cough had been hanging around and to be cautious. So sadly, we won’t be picking them up at noon on Thursday for the half day. We kept talking to her as we all walked out, around 5:30 or so.
At home played piano, and said, “It’s like something a DJ would play.” He did alone time on the piano, doing some Piano Maestro, and then we watched the GoodTimeswithScar episode 3. He had a few minutes left to try out the upside down animal spawning trick in Minecraft and it worked. He got some extra time as Carly started playing with him.
I went for a run and they did a math experiment, making two cylinders with paper and comparing their volume. When I got home Carly was playing piano and August was letting her practice. I went up to take a shower, and one of the keys broke—it was the one I had glued back together and didn’t know how strong it would be anyway. August wanted to tell me about it, but also hid under the dining room table and made a fort as he thought I’d be upset.
After my shower Carly got him up for a bath. After his bath I got him in bed. We listened to the new story on the Stories Podcast and I had Bluie dance to one of the songs and August thought it was really funny. We then listened to “Super Cape” on Bedtime Explorers. August kept cheering “Perseverance!” Earlier we had listened to KidNuz and their was an article about the naming of Perseverance, and August pointed out he’d heard about it three times. We listened to piano music and he was asleep by 10:20.
After he was asleep Carly got an email: someone with the coronavirus had been on campus briefly and they were cancelling school for tomorrow. Carly was first really worried about it, but then decided it was a free day off on August’s birthday. Looking on the bright side.
London Bridge really fast:
His song of the day:
Piano Maestro time:
Jumping and swinging:
