He woke up around 2 and asked for new pants. I asked if he wanted to go to the bathroom. He said yes, but went right back to sleep. 20 minutes or so later he came out and said something about deciding to go to the bathroom. He then slept soundly until I woke him up at 9. We talked for a few minutes, then he wanted to go downstairs and outside. He said something about it being amazing or lovely out. We went outside for 15 minutes or so. It was drizzling, but he really liked it. He climbed on the ladder of the slide and talked about birds and cats.
We went back in and listened to Nils Frahm while he made a new world in Minecraft and played in it. I set up for a Ms. Safe music lesson on simple and compound time. Carly came in and played Minecraft with him. He had some Cheerios for breakfast, then we did the Ms. Safe piano lesson, which went really well, and we talked through the whole simple versus compound time chart.
We then went upstairs for games. We did a new student, who was deaf, named Val. I then taught him about stuttering and impediment was a new word. We watchedhttps://youtu.be/_5IOse0EdIo
, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0VC0KCHghU, and part of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrraoSk_j3A. So then there was a student, Myra, who stuttered, followed by a student who was blind, Vasper, that Brother was teaching to play Minecraft, with some difficulty. We watched the Seattle Symphony Morning Notes with Ravel’s String Quartet (https://youtu.be/SlVYucdrXHw) then went downstairs where he listened to Supersonic Piano while I made grilled ham and cheese.
We went outside to eat where Carly was picking up the tree things and told the trees not to drop more. We discussed Sysiphus. We also talked to Carly about school reopening after August asked how Taya is doing. logistics was a new word. He asked who Bowie was, not sure how he got that name. Carly asked if he was still alive and when I said he had died cancer got mentioned, and August started talking about the cancer paradox.
Inside I opened YouTube and was watching a video about sportsmanship in Formula 1. August came in and watched the second half of it with me and we discussed it. We then watched the newest Iskall video, where he asked about capitalize and realization. He listened to “Rapunzel” on Stories Podcast for alone time, then played Minecraft, I think on his Realm. He randomly asked, “What’s everpresent mean?”
At the end, he somehow started a “Mathy Math Math, I hate math” chant which was both hilarious and annoying. I went upstairs for a bit. They were doing math, adding two digit numbers and carrying. Did a good job with that and earned a star. It had been a few months since Carly had tried that sort of math with him, and it was cool to see how he has progressed. He also understood starting with the ones, but then also experimented to see how it worked if you started with the tens.
He was then playing piano, then moved to iPad where he played Reason, his original synth app, then Musyc. He said he now likes when they have an ending. “It’s like a little song.” He also talked about how calming the music is.
Carly went to school to pick up mail and packages. Apparently they still haven’t been getting mail as there was nothing in her box. She did get the Amazon package that arrived weeks ago, with the piano keycaps in it. She also got a teacher appreciation gift from the PTA: a woven basket from Kuchinate and a bar of chocolate.
August asked me, “How do you use as you can imagine in a story?” We were trying to convince August to go out of the house; he’s hesitant to go anywhere. He says he isn’t afraid of the virus, but that he’s not used to it. We got him to agree to just a drive around. So we all got in the car, me driving, and drove up through Even Yehuda, then made a loop down through Bet Yehoshua, showing Carly around there, as she’s never been. It was the first time we’d all been in a car together for more than two months. We listened to Rival Consoles as we went. He asked, “In the war between North Korea and South Korea who won and what were they fighting about?”
Back home he listened to “Big Fish in a Little Pond”, then played Apples to Apples with Carly. I heard him say, “My family’s not dull.” Colin called and they played hide and seek. They were still playing it, lookin for August now, as I went for a run.When I got back they were still outside. August, Vivian, and Colin then played Minecraft in the Realm. All went smoothly this time. Carly made sushi, and August declared, “Sushi isn’t very filling.” In Minecraft he made V and a glass house for Vivian. She was impressed with those.
When they were done Carly and August called Cherie. He played a little piano. Chuck was going golfing one last time before they leave tomorrow to drive to Seattle. They also discussed the teacher appreciation gift, and at some point I got August to wear it on his head like a hat. August was then making a teacher appreciation gift for Carly, making a composition in Musyc in the shape of an M: “I’m making you your appreciation gift.”
He piled things on Carly on the couch when she was resting. He was then hyper as we all went upstairs. He had an even more annoying “Baby steps” chant this time (that’s what we had called taking a drive in the car). Carly gave him a bath and he did a lot of running around, hopefully getting energy out. When Carly had laundry fresh from the dryer he was putting his head in the basket for the warmth. Pretty funny.
He had crackers and peanut butter and we did a Brother and Sister game where they were going to a future civilization. Brother was getting left behind though so he wouldn’t push the buttons. He then listened to “The Moringa Grove” and “The Mouse Who Hung the Bell” on Stories Podcast. He then went to the bathroom and I restarted the dryer and we brushed our teeth. He was asking a lot of questions that ranged from famine and droughts to birth defects. He then asked, “What’s envy mean?” And when I explained he said Brother had envy when he couldn’t go to the civilization. He also asked, “What’s scarce?”
For nonfiction time I introduced him to National Geographic and we started an article about the search for exoplanets and life. We had lights out just a few minutes late (by 10:40) but then he was stuffy. I used the tissue on him, and he said, “Goodbye tissue! Good night!” But then August couldn’t get to sleep. He was a bit stuffy, but didn’t seem excessively so, but it seemed to really bother him. We were listening to the Olafur Arnalds re:member album, then when that was over switched to the Rival Consoles Persona album. August said he couldn’t sleep a couple times, and I got up on his bed with him for a while. He then got up to go to the bathroom again. Around 11:55 he started to get upset and whined “Why can’t I go to sleep!?” I think it was a little after midnight that he finally got to sleep. I fell asleep too until 12:30 then moved out.
Outside dance:
Mathy math math chant:
Playing in Musyc again:
His Musyc composition:
A little piece for Oma and Opa:
Baby steps:
