Seven for a secret…

I got up this morning to find Davies in the bathroom ‘dealing with broken glass here Mummy’. He’d been getting a drink and clunked the glass against the sink breaking it so was calming dealing with it in a very safe and non hysterical manner – guess he might be ready to teach to make tea very soon then :lol:. I got rid of the glass he’d carefully collected together for him and sorted out their breakfast before emptying the washing machine of one load, putting another one on and sorting a third ready to go in, letting out the bantams and then sitting down with a cup of tea.

We watched a bit of Something Special and talked a bit about sign language before flicking onto CBBC and finding whatever show it was on that channel also having the woman in the corner doing sign language so we watched that for a bit. I’ve never really known much about sign language (other than being able to do the alphabet which I learnt from someone at school) and was surprised when on a course for work last year about Equal Access to learn that BSL is a first language for many deaf people and isn’t just a straightforward translation of English and as such reading books in English wouldn’t necessarily be that straightforward. I wonder whether that hinders or helps with reading if you are not worrying about ‘sounding’ things out and simply recognising words on the page?

Davies and Scarlett played with the geomags and then tidied up and played with the x box. I did a third load of washing and just as it finished spinning and I was planning to go and hang a now ridiculously full basket out on the line it started raining. Then the sun came out. Then it rained again. It was a bit like that today :roll:. I did manage to hang it all out without getting rained on myself and bring in some of the stuff to dry indoors but the bulk of it is still out there getting rained on further. We debated various things to do today but the weather put us off anything outside-y (didn’t fancy a Wet Walk ;)) and they were actually quite content to just be home playing together so I left them to it mostly as we’re out and about all the rest of the week.

After lunch we did have to pop out – I had a couple of books to send and we needed a few bits from the shops including cat food. Davies found 20p on the floor infront of the cashpoint at Sainsburys which he was utterly delighted about and prompted all sorts of number stuff. It also prompted more chatter about old wives tales when he fell over smack on the floor in the fresh pasta aisle and was most indignant about finding money being supposed to bring good luck not bad. Then he reasoned that maybe the finding of the money was the good luck bit and you shouldn’t be expecting further offerings of luck and finally that perhaps finding 20 pennies all at once didn’t carry the same level of luck as just the one singular one. We also had chatted about the greatest and smallest number of coins needed to make various amounts, which is something I remember doing in workbooks way back in infant school myself, although of course we had halfpennies then and no 20 pence pieces (goes off into nostalgic memories of five pences being a proper size, pound notes and nice big chunky 50 pence pieces that felt like treasure, all against a soundtrack of Jamie and the Magic Torch , Angel Delight and other 70s nonsense :)).

On the way back we talked more about old wives tales and magpies as Scarlett spotted a single one and then more about money with Davies asking for ‘if you had X and you bought something costing Y how much change would you have?’ type stuff. He then floored me by counting in 10s up to 100 and once I’d clarified that 110 was the next one going off again. Either my Dad is doing sneaky maths lessons with him once a week or something mathematical is clicking and whirring away for him but it all seems to make sense to him too rather than be something he’s learnt, it is something he has discovered. 🙂 He also told me that there are 10 10s in 100 and that that meant there must be 5 20s.

At the post office I matched Davies’ 20p for Scarlett with coppers from the ashtray in my car and said they could get some penny sweets while I sent my parcels. The woman behind the newsagent counter bustled out to help them with smiles at their pleases and thankyous and chatter about various innane things. I came to assist Scarlett with keeping track of her penny sweets while Davies continued in his numeracy demonstration hour by telling me how much various things cost and how many of them he could have for his 20p, notably 2 of the 10p things and then 4 of the 5p things (because 5 and 5 is 10 and another 10 is 20 so you must need 2 and 2 which is 4 – yes, definitely all clicking into place cos he’s ‘got it’ then – woohoo!). Amazing to think in all that limited chatter coming from finding a 20p we covered addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, ratios, fractions oh and he asked me what a % sign meant in Sainsburys too so we talked about percent or out of one hundred too and put that into context for him. He also did lots of reading things like ‘half price’ and telling me what that meant – we’re getting leaps and bounds here again at the moment and it almost seems the more I step back the more he races forward. Watch how it all stops again now I’ve jinxed it by talking about it :lol:.

We came home just as it started to rain again and they ate their sweets while playing with DSs, watching each other and swapping round games. I’m so chuffed with the DSs for so many reasons – Scarlett is doing brilliantly on hers and is starting to recognise some of the words aswell as being very able with the stylus which is good for her as she still struggles rather with the X box controller and gets frustrated with herself and everyone around her. Davies is enjoying his and seems to be coping well with the Harry Potter one which seems to require a fair bit of reading. They played a game with some foam blocks and toy cars while I cooked some flapjacks and then did their tea (more bacon!) then we watched Newsround before it was time for Davies to get changed for Beavers.

One of the adult helpers at Beavers has left so they are asking all parents to go on a rota to help out otherwise they cannot run. I took the forms for Ady and I to fill out and we’d be prepared to do one evening each per term but no more. The biggest reason we send Davies and Scarlett to their various groups is to get time away from the rest of us, to be their own person, to have time in a group where they are not related to anyone and to let them make their own friends, not be under our scrutiny / control / influence. Neither Ady or I particularly like the Beaver group he is in, there are two really unpleasant boys there who the leader really struggles to deal with and it is only because Davies enjoys going that he is still there. To be honest there seems to be very little parental support or participation in that group and I’ll be very surprised if most of the parents are receptive or prepared to be put on a rota, so it will quite possibly spell the end of the group. Davies has already said he doesn’t want to move up to cubs when he’s 8 and I’ve said we can look at picking up another different activity then such as Sea Scouts or something like a sport or musical instrument then instead (I think 3 things a week is more than enough so he’s at his maximum with Beavers, Badgers and Swimming). Plus I would probably hate every single moment of being an adult helper :lol:.

Scarlett and I played Cooking Mama on her DS and I lit a fire while Davies was gone and then we walked back round to collect him. Ady rang to say goodnight to them and I read them the first chapter of The Owl who was afraid of the dark. We read Milly Molly Mandy when we were camping last August and they really enjoyed the chapter book idea then but when we got to the library we tend to choose books by their cover rather than me reading the back to them. I did borrow Famous Five with the intention of reading them that but we never did it so I must get that out again, I think that would really appeal to them both. I told them that Jill Tomlinson has written loads of books so if they like the stories about Plop we can get more books by her to read. They liked the fact there were seven chapters with Davies saying ‘so that’s exactly a weeks worth then!’

Scarlett was asleep fairly quickly but Davies reappeared just as I sat down with my dinner so he stayed up and watched Masterchef with me before going back up to bed and going to sleep fairly quickly. Tomorrow we’re off to visit the new friends we made last week which we’re all looking forward to with swimming lessons in the evening.