Bedtime reading and the history of inventions

The baby and I are currently having sections of this book read to us by Lyddie every evening:

It’s not something we could plan for, as Mr Badman seems to think we should be able to.

If I tried to insist that she did such a thing, Lyddie would be sure to resist. She’d close the book [...]

Scales, pictures, strawberries and hedgehogs

We’ve had this old set of weighing scales for about 20 years now: they’ve taught all of the children about weight:

And about working together to find things out:

Even setting things in size and weight order:

It’s not something they have access to all the time: the scales live on quite a high windowsill in the kitchen, [...]