2014-05-31: Super War and Estimation

Dad and Nigel have played Super War a couple of times recently as a Midnight Math activity. This is the classic card game War, but with each player turning over a pair of cards each time and adding them together for comparison with the other player's total. Dad usually adds his cards (ex: "Two plus eight equals ten."), and asks Nigel to add his up, then they compare the results, but sometimes estimation is encouraged.

This night, while playing, Nigel said something to the effect of, "I just knew in my brain that if two of our numbers were the same, and the other of my numbers was one more than your other number, then if you had nine, mine would be ten." An excellent and spontaneous use of estimation.

2014-05: Nigel Sayings

Commonly-heard sayings from Nigel:
Woo-eee!
Okey-dokey (probably came from Dad)
Kids and kaboodles (definitely came from Dad)

2014-05-18: Moebius Strips

For Midnight Math, Dad and Nigel made Moebius strips and talked about how they have only one side. Nigel really enjoyed this, and said he wanted to record an "Observation Journal" entry about it. In his class at school, they keep observation journals about things they learn there. Today's math project was interesting enough that it had Nigel saying, "I want to do an observation journal for math every day of my life!"

2014-05-18: Greased Pig

Nigel likes being lotioned up and playing Greased Pig with Dad, which consists of Nigel running around the house with Dad in pursuit, yelling, but unable to hold onto Nigel as he is as slippery as the eponymous greased pig. Nigel is squirming to get out of Dad's hands almost as soon as he begins applying lotion, to get to the game.

2014-05-16: Future Family Plans

A number of the kids Nigel spends time with are fairly affectionate, with goodbye hugs being the norm with Crosby and Tyson, and probably others, as well. Nigel and Crosby have been playing a lot with Joshua and Braelynn (sp?) lately, and he and Crosby have decided that when they grow up, they will both marry Braelynn. Nigel related a complex story to Mom and Dad over dinner tonight about their plans for sperm and eggs and babies. It was all a bit too complex for them to keep straight, but was certainly interesting.

2014-05-14: Nine Divided by Three

For midnight math tonight, Dad asked Nigel what nine divided by three would be. They had been talking about division a bit, separating quantities out into groups. Dad presented the question as if separating nine apples out among three people, how many could each person have?

First, Nigel guessed the answer was two, but they counted up how many that would be all together and found it to be too few. Next, he guessed four, but that was found to be too many. Then, Nigel said that anything else would be too many, so it had to be three. Excellent deductive logic.

2014-03-25: Porsche Dual-Purpose Motorcycle

In a conversation with Dad on the way to school this morning, Nigel related that he wants to have a Porsche dual-purpose motorcycle. A Porsche, so it will go very fast; dual-purpose so it can go on- or off-road; and a motorcycle because who doesn't like the idea of a motorcycle?!

2014-05-13: Division to Unity

Dad and Nigel talked on the drive home from school today about division. Nigel had heard Crosby talking about division and brought up the topic with Dad. Dad began explaining the concept, then extended it to ask Nigel if he had a million apples and wanted to divide them among a million kids, how many apples each kid would get. Nigel responded, "If you have a million apples and want to divide them among a million kids, each kid will get one," then was able to explain his reasoning to Dad.

2014-05-08: Is This New?

A conversation between Nigel and Mom today:
Nigel: Mom, is this new?
Mom: No, Nigel, I just cleaned the bathroom.
Nigel: Oh, so you just wiped it off? It's all shiny.

2014-05-03: Mom's Birthday

To celebrate Mom's birthday, the Black family came over, as did a neighbor kid, Tyson. Mom had obtained a swing and Dad had rigged it to hang from a limb of the tree in the backyard. All the kids enjoyed the swinging, and a few were brave enough to try jumping onto it from the back porch (a feat which scared Mom and Dad the first time they saw Nigel doing it).

Aunt Blaire put together a treasure hunt for the kids. One of the clues asked what made a "vroom-vroom" sound. The boys ran out to the garage, but KariAnn asked where the vacuum was. Blaire thought that was particularly funny and made sure to tell all the adults.

2014-05-02: Licking Mom

Nigel really enjoys licking Mom these days, and they have a game going where he licks her and she gets upset about it. Mom doesn't seem quite as thrilled with this game as Nigel does.