He was up on his own at 8:55. A good start. We read more of the book about Apollo, then went downstairs and played Minecraft in our creative world. He started a huge build, and had me fill the roof in using a fill command. We had oatmeal for breakfast, then I found a copy of the levels of emotions, 1 to 10, chart that I had made with him last year. I thought I had recycled all the copies, and he had wanted to see it a month or so ago. We read through all of that. He was reading a lot of the words on his own at first.
He went outside to say hi to Carly, and then told me he was getting tired of cantaloupe. He’s eaten most of a whole cantaloupe on his own, so he’s done okay. We went upstairs for wrestling. After a long time of doing that and playing games we went back down and he did his alone time, listening to the “Snake Oil” story. Carly then helped him with the big build he was working on. He was reciting lines like “It ain’t never grew right” from the story he listened to.
He did some cool piano playing, playing with long and short notes. I made schnitzel for lunch, then I was cleaning upstairs, cleaning out his closet, making it so he can get his own clothes now. He played Sound Rebound and watched Carly paint. I think she’s painting Mozart in a balloon, like her John Locke painting. He sort of did a collage with her, but wasn’t really into that, not wanting to get glue on his fingers. He did a piece of art instead though using a pencil.There was also talk about him learning to write his name.
He then did a ton of cool piano, including a “Mozart” song (he sang the word). I got to hear this as I cleaned upstairs. They came up and I showed them my progress. We then did more wrestling and he sang a “You can never pin me” song. We went downstairs and watched the newest Bdubs video. We finished the Apollo book in swing, then inside he hurt himself a bit jumping on the couch. He had the idea of acting out the anger chart levels, so we did that for a while.
I had the start of a headache, so I rested and did some more organizing upstairs. They had a long Minecraft time together. Vivian got upset when August destroyed some trap doors to make something different. Carly started to have them talk about it, but then she hung up, later sending an email saying she didn’t want to talk to them. August and Colin finished their time just fine though.
I came down. He had a hard time getting off Minecraft, but then played chess with Carly. He had rice and broccoli and cheese for dinner and we ate outside. Carly went upstairs to talk to her mom and we played chess in the swing. Inside he wanted to listen to a story. He chose that over watching videos. He listened to a story called “With Our Powers”. Baleful was a great word of the day from that story.
He read a page of Dirk Bones but then wanted to do graphing. He had me try some graphs, and actually sighed at one of my attempts. He taught me how to use the ‘Mod’ function. I said, “That’s amazing” He replied, “That’s why I wanted you to learn.”
When he learned that Carly was up in the bedroom talking to Cherie he went up to talk to Cherie too. I went for a run. When I came back they were still in the bedroom, him playing chess. He was a bit rude about the end of chess and taking a bath. Carly got him in the bath though, and we had him choose his own shorts. He chose ones to match the blue math shirt. He asked Carly, “What is it when there’s no government?” He was thinking of anarchy “I’d like that…” But then he said he would steal though, since he was a kid. We told him about CHAZ in Seattle.
In bed he listened to both parts of “Acorn Milk and the Blue Fairies” and ate his crackers. As we went to the bathroom I found a pretty big black beetle on my bed and we caught it in the bug catcher. We brushed our teeth, then he was alphabetizing Minecraft blocks. “I really like alphabetizing things.” He then said, “I know a good alphabetizing activity…” He wants to find words in magazines and have us help him list them under the correct letter.
We went back to bed and he was looking really tired. He asked, “What’s expectantly mean?” He seemed half asleep as he talked as Myna pranking Sister. Then he said he had a prank with Mama where he would play a bit of StressMonster when she went in the house: “And mama freaked out!”
He seemed to be nodding off (listening to the album of Philip Glass piano), when suddenly we heard the beetle trying to fly. So we got up and released it out the bedroom window. It almost flew back in. August said goodbye to it a couple times: “Bye beetle!” The sleepiness of a few minutes ago seemed to be gone and he was talking a lot. He talked about being happy about not being in school because he doesn’t want to get grades. I agreed, explaining how formative feedback, like he gets directly from Ms. Dalit, is better than a grade. He was even more shocked, and declared, “I need to talk to mama; I hate grading.” Next, he saw a blue light, and it turned out to be the blue light from the fan unit reflecting off the plastic crown in the pile of stuff I had to get rid of. He said, “It’s cool” literally, as blue is considered cool a cool color. Next it was, “Here’s a question about getting upset…” and asked about the difference between being in control of our bodies and out of control. So I had to discuss that, and we talked about the parts of the brain and evolution and flight versus fight. He wanted to act out getting really upset, but found out it is hard to pretend to be really upset. He was finally asleep around 11:45.
Song of the day:
Focused on chess:
Mixing short and long notes, and probably time signatures:
