Our son has always loved Top Trumps. It’s the same ritual every time. Before we play he loves to line the cards up in order for each of the categories. Clearly the girl cat is not a fan of straight card lines. Apart from the cat the other thing which frustrates our son with the game is that he has to rely on me to read out the text on each card.

We continue to try and work together on our son’s dyslexia. Some progress is being made. Although he still struggles in general he now can just about spell the player names from his favourite football team. He can spell my teams player names as well. ‘Loser’ covers that one.

But for all the progress he still can’t read the books he is so desperate to enjoy. This is made worse when he hears other kids talking about the stuff they have read. So I have bought him a reading pen. Basically it’s a pen shaped scanner with a headphone. It reads out scanned text. He has used them sporadically at school and they do give him a sense of independence.

We have opted for the C-Pen Exam Reader. Will report back on its performance. However today a very happy boy enjoyed reading a comic by himself. Plus the scanner works on Top Trump Cards. The signs are good.

Jelly Bean Challenge: How many ScoobyDoo movies and episodes have been made?

Different sites have different numbers but going to use these as our marking scheme

Shows (not including cross overs and stuff not including Scoobie) – 406

Films – 39

Specials – 11

Total about 456

My guess was 350. Son’s guess was 399. So again I visited the Jelly Bean Lounge. This time no bullet in the chamber – lucky to select normal apple flavour. However due to earlier attempted cheating I was forced to select a second bean. This time I can confirm blood flavour is revolting.

The next challenge was set by a random question setter we have found on the internet. The question is how many types of poisonous snakes live in Australia. Apparently the answer “too many” is not specific enough.