He was up at 8:40. He went to the bathroom on his own, then came downstairs and I greeted him at the bottom. He played piano for a while, then wanted to get to our Hermit Challenges in Minecraft. We did that. I challenged him to “Tame a pet”. We did it like they did in Hermitcraft, writing on pieces of paper and putting them in dispensers. I was about to suggest he ask Carly to help him write his, when he said he was ready. He had written “Min a dimed wif wuud picasis.” That is, ‘Mine a diamond with wood pickaxes.’ The first time he’s done so much guess spelling at once, and definitely the longest sentence he’s ever attempted to write.
A productive day in Minecraft: we also named the turtle that spawned on top of a lamppost and has been there for months ‘Shmorgadeturtle’. And I found two cats, and we each tamed one and named them Shmorgadeeboop (me) and Cute (him).
When we got off, he noticed that Gilad was on Minecraft. I had forgotten it was Friday. So they were playing together a couple minutes later. We showed Gilad around our survival world, then they went into a world of Gilad’s. It was going to be really warm today, and I’d gotten August into shorts. I went outside and worked out there while they played, after getting him oatmeal. Lovely, but a cement mixer soon drove up the block where they’re doing some sort of work and was making all sorts of noise.
He finished with Gilad right as I finished with work. He wanted to earn 2 stars. So first we did a Ms. Safe music time, doing a couple pages of the theory book, then watching a video about time signature tricks, which reminded me of what August does with triplets and duples sometimes and learned that the process is called a hemiola (https://youtu.be/0RLwXSbSErs).
He then earned a star by reading to me from Rivet. He easily jumped up a couple levels from where he’d been previously reading to me from, and read No! by Karen Vermeulen, which was really good, then one of those awful YouTube books, this one about elves on a shelf.
That gave him 5 stars so we played Minecraft, this time in the flat world and making snow golems everywhere, particularly to make snow on our mountain. He asked me, “What’s the ‘port’ part mean?” In the word teleport. After that he listened to the Max Goodname story about “The Magic Armor” again. We learned the word prestidigitation from it. We had the dark grapes and hot dogs for lunch, followed by cookies and milk. We then started “Max Goodname and the Silent Knight”, listening to half of the first episode.
He played some piano, then wanted to go upstairs. He agreed to have me read some articles I’d wanted to read to him upstairs. We started with a New York Times article about how praying mantises hunt, but got distracted by the mention of something called robber flies so we read more of the article on them (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/science/robber-flies-eyes.html?referringSource=articleShare) We learned about constant bearing angle, and how it involved trigonometry, and August practiced with his hands. Then in Haaretz we read parts of articles about reverse culture shock (from COVID-19) and about a kid who is transgendered, before getting to the article I had in mind, about giant viruses (Giant viruses https://www.haaretz.com/science-and-health/.premium.MAGAZINE-mystery-of-the-giant-virus-stargate-solved-1.8843231)
Carly was down for a bit, and August requested doing more Civic Mirror. Carly gave him one of her shirts to cuddle with to reduce some of the jumping on her, and it seemed to work: “Okay, this actually feels really good.” She told him about the Civic Mirror country of her students, and how a student was taking the president/dictator to court. August observed, “How do you take a dictator to court‽”
He agreed to go on an ant walk, and Carly came too. We took some old apple to feed the ants, and he divided it between three colonies: the usual one, a colony he saw with a path across the sidewalk, and a new one that popped up closer with really fast reddish ants. We studied each of those for several minutes, realizing that you could see the paths of the ants on the brick sidewalk from where they’d worn away the dust with all their walking.
Back at the house he played some synthesizer, then said, “Mama, back to Civic Mirror. I was a dictator.” I started working on keycaps. Carly was tired and went upstairs, so August and I watched Mumbo Jumbo episode 9. We then went outside and I worked on the keys and August was Myna talking about her megabase. He also watered the plants. He went in and was playing piano, sans a lot of the white keys, so he played in pentatonic, to just use the black keys. He came out and told me, “Here’s why i like playing in pentatonic…everything fits.” Back inside he played piano for me: “Here’s a warm sound…naturish.” “Here’s a song that sounds like a castle is being attacked or something.” And he told me, “I’m really interested in dynamics.”
We then walked back over to see how the ants were doing. The piece on the sidewalk was almost gone. It looked like they had left the peel. While the small piece on the red ant nest was gone, presumably they were able to pull it into the hole. His top front tooth is almost out and he’s wiggling it a lot. He randomly asked, “What’s cunning mean?” Probably from a story (maybe Loki?)
Colin called about 5:30 and we talked to him and Cassie. He told us that Oma and and Opa are camping. They are in Parker, Arizona. August asked, “Are they setting up a humble camp?” August and Colin called each other back and forth. It interrupted Vivian, as it also rang on her iPad, and she was sounding more teenager-y than usual today. August played piano for them and when Cassie asked if it was a song he had learned he said he just made it up. And said, “I’m not really into sheet music now. I’m into making stuff up.”
August and Colin wanted to start Minecraft early, and Vivian wanted ten more minutes of reading, so they waited. They then all played. Not sure which world they ended up in. Colin had a bit of a fit at some point, and August expressed some empathy for him, saying that he is probably tired now and that “I get tired when I have a fit.” And later was asking Vivian why she wouldn’t let Colin in her hangout area. He also randomly asked, “What’s blushing?”
I went for a run. When I got back they were outside teaching Oma about Minecraft. They were listening to “Max Goodname and the Silent Night” and having popcorn when I came down from a shower.
When he finished part one of that story I got him upstairs. He told me, “You should think of a Brother and Sister game scenario. You haven’t done that in a long while. Sorry, I’m a dictator.” Even though 95% of the think of the stories seems to be me. He spent a long time in the bathroom, asking along the way “What’s a tourney?”
We went to the bedroom and he had a Brother and Sister game where Myna had gone “OTT” (over the top) in Minecraft and made a huge dirt hut build. He ate his crackers and peanut butter, and said good night to Carly. We read more of National Geographic Kids, then listened to the Brian Eno and Harold Budd album The Pearl. He asked, “What’s cunning?” Then fell asleep right at 11.
Song of the day:
Music lesson time:
Playing a hemiola:
Hemiola 2:
Mama shirt:
Ants 1:
Ants 2:
Ants time lapse:
Synth time:
Playing pentatonic:
A warm song:
His first sentence!
