All 16 lights are on. Full energy.

Binbin has been in fourth gear learning, it seems, more and more quickly every day. He has quickly advanced from knowing, for example, how all the individual pieces in chess move to seeing and judging better moves from worse.

On the reading front:

We are on the verge of transitioning from a mixture of picture books, comic books, easy readers, and chapter books to classics. One afternoon, Binbin started gathering what he called "big boy books" from his old bedroom bookshelf and bringing them down by the armfuls into the living room. He showed us each title, and based on whether Jack or I or both of us had read it, Binbin sorted them into 3 piles. Out of the multiple piles, he selected Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book as his new nighttime reading. The quality of vocabulary, crafting of prose was immediately apparent.

What Binbin has learned: the meanings of words such as "thy" "thee" "thine" and "ye."

What we have learned: classics work make good bed-time reading.

On the math front:

What Binbin has learned: Using two 20-sided dice, Binbin is now doing addition requiring "carrying over," and doing this with more consistency. He rolls the two dice, which determine the numbers to be added. We write 4 problems down to make a set. Binbin does the adding, I check his work.

What I have learned: Adding is way more fun when 20-sided dice are involved.