Lido & Role Play Bankers
After another terrible night's sleep for Jenson, he slept in this morning until 9am and I've noticed a sharp lift in his mood as a result.
We arrived at the Lido at 9.30am and spent over four hours there. I was pummelled for at least half that time by the pair of them. With Jenson pulling on my ankles and Wren clinging to my back, I feared I might drown! I did manage to enjoy an hour sat by the pool while keeping a very close eye on the pair of them in the water. I even managed a quick flick through our newly delivered newspaper!
Towards the end of our session they started to play one of their favourite games: Miow. Wren was Mummy Miow and Jenson baby Miow. It was Mummy Miow's job to look after baby Miow, who by this point had started to stumble around in the pool with his eyes closed. It looked like part of their game but I couldn't be sure. I became more nervous when baby Miow started to pretend to fall asleep in Mummy Miow's arms. His head went under the surface on more than one occasion and even the lifeguard was starting to give him a few looks. I went over to ask if he was actually falling asleep or if he was pretending and he said he was just playing. However, just a few minutes later he asked to go home because he was tired!
Instead of heading home we took a small detour to the garden centre. I had led the children to believe we were getting ice creams, which we did, but in actual fact I was after a few plants. That little excursion did lead us nicely into our afternoon activity though.
Whilst at the garden centre they both acquired a gardening club card each, which they adopted as bank cards. After Jenson let go of his in the convertible I managed to retrieve if from the middle of the road. When we did finally get home Jenson made a remarkable recovery to the point that we did some lovely role play.
Shop keepers was the name of the game. After fetching some things to sell in his shop, he opened the cash till and greeted his first customer of the day, (me) with a great big smile! He explained how much everything cost. Some items were so expensive they made my eyes pop - they made the Cheltenham charity shops look cheap!
Jenson had a super time pretending to be both customer and shop keeper. We talked about why receipts are important and he was even able to write one out for me.
He is also becoming really good at identifying coins. When playing the role of shop keeper, I explained that one of the toys cost 20p. He had a handful of different coins in his hand but when I asked him which coin the 20p piece was he gave me the right one.
Here he is punching the right numbers into his till. I can really see how his brain is starting to get things, be it currency and numbers or reading and writing.
Wren meanwhile was able to sort the coins into the right shapes and sizes. They are both exactly where they should be for their ages. A super afternoon of applied maths.