One word? When seven would do…

One of the things I keep forgetting to blog is that twice this week Davies and Scarlett have caught a bit of the daily news on TV and it has led to tricky conversations. Once was about ‘drugs’ which actually I sort of struggled to define really. I thought I was doing an ok job and then Ady reminded me that medicine is drugs too so I had to start again. I think I got the basic information over in giving them a definition, a context and point of reference for the news story and then a wider explanation about issues surrounding drugs too. It makes it all the harder when I try not to give black and white lectures about right and wrong and do more of an offering them all available information, suggesting my own stance on things and encouraging them to think through their own opinions. Clearly I’m not suggesting I laid out drugs paraphenalia for my 5 and 7 year old and told them to ‘have a go if they liked’ but I do try to explain why people might take drugs, what the possible implications are and why it may not be such a great idea to take mind altering substances with huge possible side effects in a recreational fashion (all the while knowing full well that they know we and most other adults they know drink alcohol). I just think the ‘Just Say No’ type message isn’t always sufficient when you factor in natural curiosity and teenage rebellion some way later down the line.

Then yesterday we touched on terrorism. Once we’d defined it I used the Word Trade Center attacks, IRA bombings and the July 7th London bombings as examples in my own lifetime. We talked about why people might be motivated to perform acts of terrorism and again in striving to explain it I didn’t want to go down the ‘people are evil’ route without talking it through so we discussed things that people might be prepared to kill or die for, how the threat of terrorism and a culture of living in fear is still considered a victory for terrorists. I’ve been searching today for more modern day films or books about such things and found very little. The various films made of the 911 attacks are all a 15 certficate at least and probably too sophisicated to get the point across. I did find a fairly good bit on the CBBC Newsround site which I might show them tomorrow.

Today was a working all day day for me. It kicked off with Storytime which I’d already known I’d be doing this week and had gathered a few books together ready for. I attempted to read four stories which I now concede was ambitious – The Gruffalo, I Love my bed, My Beak your beak and Hairy Mclarey from Donaldsons Dairy. We sang lots of songs and I was clambered over my small crawling babies (shudder), I had a picture of the Gruffalo for them to colour and another one from the lion in My beak, your beak. Sadly about halfway through Hairy Mclairy I just utterly lost my audience and there was not one single child still listening by the end. Four of the older girls started squabbling over who was sitting on a cushion, several of the little ones were just at the end of their concentration span and as I lost some so the rest went. There were 22 children and 18 adults though and all the adults remained with me with one of them actually calling out ‘carry on, we’re still listening!’. I actually got a round of applause at the end as I closed the book with a flourish and a ‘And we’re there!’ 😆 The oldest children are possibly 4 and at that age both Davies and Scarlett required a very interactive storytime with lots of pointing out things in the illustrations, being able to contribute (read interupt) and actually participate rather than listen so it is totally understandable. If I did it every week I can think of small measures to try and make it an easier half hour but it is not something I do regularly enough to start trying to change things. I also think a storytelling session rather than reading a book might work better although I guess that starts to detract from the whole books at the library side of it.

The rest of the day passed fairly smoothly. A new woman started yesterday so I worked with her for the first time today. Her sister works with Ady so we’d both been told about each other already ;). She is very interested in HE – she has a 2 yo daughter with cerebral palsey so we were chatting lots about that and I’ve a feeling we’ll continue to do so for a while. She seems very nice so I’m looking forward to getting to know her better and working with another new face.

Ady was home this morning and they did painting. This afternoon Dad was here and the children mostly played in the garden as finally we’ve had a dry, fairly sunny day here today.

Having always liked Barefoot Books we’ve had a couple lately which have been really good books so I went through the library’s full catalogue last week and ordered in all of the Barefoot Books categorised as POR (picture books for older readers) – 25 of which had arrived today. So I brought home a huge great piles of gorgeous books and we read a few before dinner. Then Davies and Scarlett had a much needed bath (a day in the garden after 3 days of rain meant they were rather filthy, and also had been barefoot!) and then we read another huge pile. I think we reached 12 books altogether tonight :). I’ve been poking around the Barefoot Books website a bit as they have a very interesting looking Storytelling competition which Davies is interested in and I ‘ve been taken enough with the books to consider selling them. I need to think about that a bit more but I have a germ of an idea taking off in my mind which once I’ve thought about a bit more I might share…

I’ve had some emails back from the Sustainability Centre and the Campcraft people so I’ll need to start sorting out plans for that camp and getting numbers planned. Also Davies has agreed to have his birthday party at camp rather than at the party hall which is great but possibly offers new challenges which he and I need to thrash out too.