I went up and got him up at 9:15. Took a few minutes, then gave me a wimpy shot. Then I read a few chapters of Wayside School is Falling Down. We went downstairs, and August wanted to play War. We played ten minutes or so, starting our very first hand of the day with a double war.
He then played Minecraft with Gilad. Gilad said he had 30 minutes, but they went more like 50. August talked about using his morning time after that, but then we got on to doing other things and he never brought it back up, but did have his usual alone time. He and I went outside and played with the soccer ball. There was lots of giggling, especially when he started throwing the ball away from me. He’s doing pretty well with catching, but the next step is catching a ball that is thrown up into the air.
Back inside he read a book about polar bears to me. It was his first level 5 book in Rivet and he did quite well. We moved to chess and analyzed positions and set up mating puzzles before watching the newest BDubs video. We watched a couple videos about Juneteenth (a word of the day), although didn’t do as much of that as I had planned as I got talking to Carly. She had been cleaning stuff upstairs and we switched and I finished that up.
They were playing chess on the iPad and he was eating quesadilla when I came back down. They had also played on the real chess board. They played a while longer, then he pulled ‘Mama reads a book’ out of the basket of papers. They read the class clown book outside. He next drew ‘Gravity Maze’ and he did that with me. He did an easy level, then wanted to jump to a hard one. We paused to each have a nectarine, then were distracted by a big fly/wasp thing. He ran upstairs, and I eventually got it out through the window.
Carly made him a hotdog and I read Wayside School Is Falling Down while he ate. There is a story about their nice teacher being mean, and August said he has a nice teacher. I said thank you, to which he responded, “I was talking about my preschool teacher. But you’re nice too.” Next is a lesson verb tense. We did the second Gravity Maze level together, then continued our War game.
He listened to “The Great Ballgame” for alone time, then we played in the survival world. He was adding to Carly’s base. He’s also started a long-term practical joke on her, removing one block from her bridge at a time, to see how long it takes her to notice. This is kind of the opposite of what he’s seen Grian do to MumboJumbo, where he is adding one random block at a time.
We got ready to go for a bike ride, and he found a dead mouse in the yard that hadn’t been there earlier. We speculated on how it got there. We got the bike out, and he then spotted ants carrying a dead bee on the edge of the street. We watched that for several minutes, and he helped by removing obstacles in their path. I asked if he thought they were trying to carry it up the edge or something like that, and he shot back, “Well, I can’t read ants’ minds.”
We went on our bike ride, going all the way down on the old highway to the spot where you can turn around (where it then goes through the tunnel). August was saying something about an explanation point sign, which I never saw, but then pointed out a big pile of glass lying on the ground. We stopped and looked at it. He said he wouldn’t get too close, but then I explained it was safety glass, and how it breaks. He collected some and we put it in my pocket.
We rode home, and he found the ants still carrying the bee. We watched as they attempted to get it in the hole to their nest, in the curb next to our house. We went inside the yard. Carly was outside, and he told her about everything. He showed her the glass from my pocket and said, “I got remnants…”
We then did a magazine activity. August had had the idea of an alphabetizing activity, finding words in a magazine. But when we started doing it he had a different idea: he listed off the first letters of all the words, and I did tally marks for each letter. He found that T was the most common, followed by S: “I’m learning the frequency…”
At 6:10 he went in and called to start Minecraft. I went for a run. When I got back and out of the shower he was finishing up and Carly cut up a mango how he liked. He was still talking to Vivian and told her it was the beginning of mango season here. She said they were getting peaches. He then ate broccoli and tofu. Then soup and more soup.
He next drew reversi out of the basket. He played some battleship first, then we played reversi against the computer. I took care of the mouse, disposing of it over by the ant nests. He then drew vocabulary and spelling. He liked my idea of typing, and we worked through his name. He typed his first name a few times. He’s getting close to memorizing it. Then his whole name, all four of them, but did so vertically.
I took him upstairs and had him do his bath. He washed his face in the sink. He turned on the AC in his room to make it really cold. Carly brought up his crackers. He complained there wasn’t enough honey. I pointed out he eats that part really quickly, then just licks and scrapes the cracker. He said that was a good point and decided it was okay.
In his room he told me, “Just so you know, my favorite story is “The Great Ballgame”.” Carly said good night, then he listened to “Two Daughters” on Stories Podcast. Maelstrom was a new word. We brushed our teeth, and he had the idea of taking one ant from each of the nests he knows about and having them fight: “TVIAOTY…The Very Important Ant of the Year” In his room he was walking back and forth making further acronyms. He was then hitting my knee to make it do a reflex. We’ve discovered it actually works better when I’m lying down, sideways.
We listened to the Cluster and Eno album. He analyzed his face in the mirror and made funny faces before coming to bed. He was pretending to be a silk worm, then asked, “Is there a dark side to having epilepsy?” I had lights off at 10:35, hoping he’d fall asleep sooner. That wasn’t to be. We finished the Cluster and Eno album, then I put on Philip Glass’s Solo Piano. He woke me up 5 or 6 times before falling asleep around 11:30.
Minecraft with Gilad:
Not throwing me the ball:
Piano experimenting:
Ants and bee 1:
Ants and bee 2:
Ants and bee 3:
Letter frequency activity:
