This is Alex with Darci – his ‘pet’ snake. She comes with us to many places. We got her when I noticed Alex playing with snakes in the ‘Keeper Kids’ section at Melbourne zoo and spending hours in the reptile house as we are regular visitors. Since getting Darci, we’ve been exploring snakes – websites, youtube links, documentaries, library books. He draws snakes, makes them with playdough, ties ropes and belts to the end of them to make them as long as possible. Our favourite board game is snakes and ladders. He’s learning about different species, anatomy, adaptations, food chains as a short list. And so as part of our Healesville camping trip we took the opportunity of booking him in to a ‘Magic Moment’ at the Sanctuary with a python! It’s great to be able to make dreams come true. Indirectly his computer skills are increasing, as well as literacy. His number awareness has even improved – he used to ask me to count to 100 a lot, and he recognised numbers from a young age as we were using public transport and we’d talk about platform numbers. But his new reason for needing to know humbers is Daniel! Whilst we play snakes and ladders, Daniel often steals away our counters and so we have to remember where we are!
