This week's episodes

CBeebies (Freeview 71, Sky/digital satellite channel 614, Virgin media channel 702)
9:45 am – 10:05 am and the same episode is repeated 1:45 pm – 2:05 pm.
On Sundays the afternoon episode starts an hour later at 2:45.

A brand new series of Something Special starts in September and I can hardly contain my excitement. But until then there are plenty of Tumble-abulous episodes to watch.

Saturday 10th September (afternoon episode at 2:45)
Series 6, Park: Mr Tumble tries to find a boat of his own to go on a sea adventure.

Sunday 11th September (afternoon episode an hour later at 2:45)
Series 6, Nature Trail: Justin, Amy and Sebastian look for teeny tiny creatures that live in a park.

Monday 12th September
Series 6, Play: Justin visits his friends at their playgroup and joins them having fun at the water table, sandpit and playing the parachute game. Meanwhile Mr Tumble is playing some games of his own with Grandad Tumble and Lord Tumble.

Tuesday 13th September
Series 6, Sport: Justin has a very sporty day with his friends Tyrone, Claire and Sophie. Whilst Aunt Polly, Lord Tumble and Grandad Tumble show Mr Tumble how to do his exercises.

Wednesday 14th September
Series 6, Island: Justin and his friends Adam and Levi are visiting the Farne Islands by boat to see the seals. Mr Tumble is visiting his friend Fisherman Tumble and helping him get ready to go out on his fishing boat.

Thursday 15th September
Series 6, Festival: Justin has lots of fun dancing to a band at a music festival with his friend Jaya, while Grandad Tumble puts on a concert for Mr Tumble and the toys!

Friday 16th September
Series 6, London: Justin has a day out in London with his friends Sabia, Mihad and Saqib. Meanwhile, Mr Tumble has lots of fun at home with his London Book.

Saturday 17th September
Series 6, Art: Justin visits his friends at their school and has lots of fun with paint, while Mr Tumble paints a surprise for Grandad Tumble.

Back to school!

It's the start of term for most children this week, so it's a good time to watch what Mr Tumble and his friends do at school. When my little boy was settling in at nursery recently I tried to show him other children enjoying playgroups and school to help convince him that these were generally considered to be a good thing. (In fact, searching for the references to school was one of the main inspirations for this blog.)

School
Series 1 (2006) On the Busy Places DVD

When Tyra arrives at SCHOOL the other children are doing puzzles and art projects while waiting for school to start. Fiona, the TEACHER, starts the day by SINGING the Good Morning song. As part of the song Tyra has to find her name label to put on the board so that everybody she knows she is at school today.

The children do more singing:

Ragdoll's arms have got no bones,
when you lift them up they go flop.
Ragdoll's legs have got no bones,
when you lift them up they go flop.
Ragdoll's head just wigs and wags,
what a funny doll made of rags.

(You can replace “ragdoll” with someone's name, and “doll” in the last line with Boy or Girl.)

Later we see Tyra and her classmates in the school hall doing PE. After all that climbing and jumping they are tired and thirsty so are looking forward to their drink of JUICE and EATING a piece of APPLE or BANANA when they get back to their CLASSROOM.

Mr Tumble is also at school today, wearing a very smart “Tumble High School” uniform. He has to be reminded to sit the right way round on his chair, but his schoolboy's cap stays the wrong way round. He finds some PAPER and tries to DRAW A PICTURE with an enormous PENCIL but eventually finds a smaller pencil which makes it easier for him to draw a self-portrait.

You sign...
  • SCHOOL
  • TEACHER
  • CLASSROOM
  • FRIENDS
  • BOY
  • GIRL
  • TOILET
  • SITTING DOWN
  • DRINKING
  • EATING
 Signing tips
  • The movement used in the sign for TEACHER reminds me of the sign for SPEAK or SAY, except you move your hand forward twice and you use both hands therefore a teacher is someone who talks four times as much!
  • There are two parts to the sign for CLASSROOM: TEACHER and ROOM. Lots of different types of rooms and places are defined by making a square shape in front of you. The sign for PICTURE is also a square shape drawn in front of you.
  • NAMES: There are lots of conventions about names in deaf culture, but often using the initial of a person's name is enough. My little boy's name begins with a J, so he learned that letter quickly as he saw Justin sign his name that way in every episode of Something Special. Sometimes in a group where several names begin with the same letter you need to sign more than just the initial letter. Instead of signing the whole name, you could sign the initial plus BOY or GIRL, as Justin does in today's episode: he signs T GIRL for Tyra, R BOY for Ryan, J GIRL for Julie etc. In another episode we see Justin sign J SMALL for one of his friends called Jack. Sometimes you add a person's characteristic to their initial, such as using the sign for glasses for a spectacles wearer.
It's time to sign some more:
  • GOOD MORNING
  • SING
  • TYRA IS SITTING WITH HER FRIENDS
  • JUICE
  • DO YOU REMEMBER TYRA?
  • TYRA LIKES SCHOOL
  • TYRA IS SITTING DOWN
  • NATASHA IS DRINKING JUICE
Best bit
We meet Tyra, Julie and Libby-May again in later episodes of Something Special, looking quite grown-up.


Play
Series 5, (2010) on the Out and About DVD

Mr Tumble is playing Giant Jenga outside in the sunshine before he sends his spotty bag to Justin. Justin is at a playgroup in East London with his friends Leo and Connor. The children are having great FUN playing under a sprinkler and POURING water over a WATER WHEEL. Then Justin plays with Calipha and Katab in the SANDPIT where they have buried some interesting things.


Back at Tumble Towers Mr Tumble wants to play some games, so firstly he plays TENNIS with Lord Tumble. Mr Tumble gets a bit overwhelmed by Lord Tumble's superior tennis skills, so he plays Tiddlywinks with Grandad Tumble instead. Grandad Tumble has to go and retrieve all of the lost “winks” so Mr Tumble would like to play another game now and says: I NEED SOMEONE to play HIDE AND SEEK with. Lord Tumble comes along again and wants to know: WHY are you COUNTING? He asks: Can I PLAY? and reveals: I KNOW all of Mr TUMBLE'S HIDING places. He spots Mr Tumble's BOW-TIE behind the chair, but Mr Tumble isn't there. Lord Tumble spots a pair of red BOOTS behind the curtain, but Mr Tumble isn't there either. Everyone decides that Mr Tumble has finally found a game he's good at.

At the playgroup Justin and Zack have two new things to play with: a yellow ball and a PARACHUTE. Justin sends a smaller parachute back to Mr Tumble in the SPOTTY BAG.

You sign...
  • WATER PLAY
  • SANDPIT
  • PARACHUTE
  • PLAY
Signing tips
  • It is a bit hard to see, but to sign SAND, Justin rubs his thumbs against the pads of his fingers, as though he's rubbing butter into flour to make a cake.
It's time to sign some more
  • It's OK.
  • I'M PLAYING LOTS of GAMES
  • JUSTIN is PLAYING LOTS of GAMES with his FRIENDS
  • LET'S GO and MEET MY FRIENDS.
  • WHAT shall we PLAY TODAY?
  • SORRY
  • NO PEEPING
  • GOOD IDEA
  • CLEVER
  • YES I KNOW
  • YOU DON'T have to TELL ME
  • SEE YOU SOON
  • This PARACHUTE GAME looks like GREAT fun
  • RUNNING UNDERNEATH the PARACHUTE
Best bits
  • Justin buries Calipha's foot in some sand and she tells him off. Then Calipha spontaneously signs RED BALL - clever girl.
  • Lord Tumble's laid-back tennis style is amazing – why haven't we seen him at Wimbledon yet? This scene contains lots of wonderful slapstick such as Lord Tumble managing to hit the tennis ball from inside his top hat.
  • The lovely shot of a little boy peeping out from the centre of the parachute is used in the opening credits for this series.
  • My little boy almost explodes with excitement every time he watches this episode as Justin has a yellow football the same as his.

 More Educative Tumbling
Music (Series 1)
Series 1 Justin meets the school band and joins in a music lesson.

Garden (Series 1)
The children from Oakleigh School organise a visit to their beautiful sensory garden.

Colours (Series 2)
Justin doesn't actually say that he is visiting a school, but we see the children painting in a classroom.

People who help us (Series 2)
The toys want to play school, so Mr Tumble joins in and pretends to do several jobs.

Shapes (Series 2)
The children at school are using sticky paper to make pictures from different shapes. This episode contains one of my all-time favourite moments, when the teacher advises one of the pupils to use, “Just a little bit of lick!” However, it also contains one of my little boy's least favourite bits when Mr Tumble wears the weird face picture he has made out of shapes – scary!

Art (Series 2)
We see the pictures that children at school make, using lots of different materials.

Opposites (Series 2)
Children playing in a playground go up and down, inside and outside.

Drive (Series 5)
This shows the journey to school and a typical special school bus.

School (Series 3)
Justin goes to school to meet Noor, who's in the hydrotherapy pool. She has fun splashing. We'll be looking at this episode in detail next week.

What next?
  • Teach your child the first letter of his or her name. You can find the finger-spelling alphabet here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Sign_Language or here: http://www.british-sign.co.uk/fingerspelling.php where there are lots of free resources to help you learn the fingerspelling alphabet.
  • As well as showing your child the sign that you do, trace out the sign on their hand too. My little boy's name begins with J, so I put the capital J from his bath-time sponge letters onto his palm and traced over that. Then I put two sponge letters on the side of the bath and asked him which one was “his” letter. When he sees a picture of Justin in the Something Special magazine, he signs J.
  • Line up dollies and teddies and play schools with them. Teach them some signs and the letters of their names.

Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside!

It's the last week of the summer holidays for most children so we're going to take one last trip to the seaside (even though, as I write, I'm wearing a jumper and Ugg boots – but that's in the best tradition of British seaside holidays).



Beach
Series 3 (2008) On the All Around Me DVD

Justin and Mr Tumble go through the magic door to the beach at Bowleaze Cove near Weymouth in Dorset. Justin and his friends Sophie and Chloe find lots of exciting things on the beach including sea anemones and a crab.

You sign: 
  • ROCKPOOL
  • SEAWEED
  • ICE CREAM
 Signing tips: 
  • The sign for POOL is similar to SEA; as with lots of signs in BSL and Makaton, you differentiate the signs by the amount you move your hand i.e. SEA is a more obvious wavy movement than POOL. In the Mountain episode we learn how to sign LAKE and PUDDLE which are similar.
  • The sign for WEED is the same as PLANT, which we meet in lots of episodes of Something Special.
  • ICE CREAM is one of those signs you can very easily guess – just mime licking an ice cream – Yum!

Justin signs a potentially very useful sentence: FOUR ICE CREAMS PLEASE. Quadruple yum!
We also see Justin sign:  
  • BEACH
  • WHERE SHALL WE LOOK FIRST?
  • UNDERWATER CREATURES
  • UNDER 
  • FUN EXPLORING THE BEACH;
  • LISTEN, I HEAR AN ICE CREAM VAN
Meanwhile Mr Tumble uses a little magic and some ingenuity to make a picture of himself. If you'd like a clue how he does this, he signs I NEED A PINK TOWEL.

Mr Tumble also signs: 
  • COLLECT
  • PEBBLES
  • SHELLS
  • SURPRISE

Grandad Tumble uses his time on the beach to catch up on his beauty sleep, but when he wakes up he signs: TOWEL and WHERE.
Best bit: Grandad Tumble clearly has an interesting back-story; when he's talking in his sleep we hear him say, “No, Mavis, no!” and “That tickles!”


By The Sea
Series 5 (2010) On the DVD Out and About: Hello Mr Tumble

Justin meets his friends Violet and Fahim by the SEA on the Isle of Wight. They take the very exciting CHAIR LIFT in Alum Bay down to the beach where they go for a boat ride around the Needles LIGHTHOUSE. Later, back on dry LAND, they play a hoopla GAME.

You sign:
  • Chair lift
  • Lighthouse
  • Game
  • Chocolate

Signing tips:
  • Although you might already know the signs for chair, light and house (or home), Justin uses signs which are specific to these contexts. It's tempting to think that such signs are of limited use, but if you live near a noticeable feature like a lighthouse or chair lift, your child will probably want to talk about them. My little boy is far more interested in exciting things like the trains and boats near our house, than asking for his nappy to be changed!
  • To sign GAME, notice how Justin uses the sign for the letter G, then swaps his fists around. To sign Grandma in our family we sign G G, with the right fist on top each time.
  • The sign Justin uses for DRY LAND, might be more familiar to you as PARK or GARDEN. 
Mr Tumble is also BY THE SEA with Grandad Tumble and Aunt Polly. Mr Tumble dresses up as a PIRATE and tries to follow a TREASURE MAP but says, I CAN'T FIND THE TREASURE. He follows the map to Grandad Tumble who helps him by giving him a SPADE, even though Mr Tumble has just accidentally tripped over his SANDCASTLE. Mr Tumble can't guess what the spade is for, and Grandad Tumble tells him to WAIT AND SEE. Mr Tumble is even more mystified when Aunt Polly gives him a KEY. Aunt Polly finishes her CHOCOLATE CAKE and goes PADDLING IN THE SEA while Mr Tumble uses his TELESCOPE to find the palm tree marking the spot where the treasure is hidden: a chest full of CHOCOLATE coins – yippee!

Justin also signs:
  • READY
  • THROW
  • HOOP
  • ONE MORE HOOP
  • WISH ME LUCK
  • HURRAY 
  • WE'VE WON A PRIZE.
  • Other signs used today include SORRY and OK.

Best bits:
  • When they are going down to the beach in the chair lift, Justin says, “Violet's having such a lovely time, she doesn't want to get off.”  Violet's face tells a very different story!
  • We see Aunt Polly very daintily insert a whole piece of chocolate cake in her mouth at once.

  

More Tumble-by-the-sea
  • In the episode called Park from series 6 (2010, not yet available on DVD), Mr Tumble starts the episode sitting on the beach. He uses binoculars to look for a sailing boat so he can go out to sea.
  • Series 2 features an episode called Holiday where Mr Tumble has gone to the seaside at the wrong time of year and struggles to keep warm. (This episode doesn't seem to be available on DVD.)

What next?
  • Practise the signs in these episodes by hiding some items in your sandpit. You might not have a real crab handy, so a picture of one will still be good enough for a fun game of hide and seek.
  • Make your own hoopla game: use a few empty plastic bottles, or a few tin cans of food (they will be more stable if they still have their contents in). Cut some rings out of card with a central hole at least an inch or two wider than the widest jar or bottle. Children might enjoy painting the rings before starting the game.
  • Draw a simple map of your living room or garden, with a trail that children have to follow to find their own buried treasure. This also works with tinies if you give verbal instructions (supported by signs if possible) instead: “Where's Teddy? Look under the chair. Now look behind the curtains.”

Hello, hello!

Hello, hello, as our good friend Mr Tumble would say!
I've created this blog to help parents, teachers and carers make maximum use of each episode of CBeebies' Something Special as an educational language resource, by detailing the signs used and the content covered.
Eventually each episode will have its own detailed description, so it will be possible to search by theme (e.g. school or animals) or by language content (e.g. the sign for windmill, or types of food).
Every week I'll also bring you a theme which summarises the language and content from several episodes of Something Special. This week it's Oh I do like to be beside the seaside! Next week it will be Back to School and the week after will be Swimming. Each week you'll be able to find details of all the signs used, the words to songs, character profiles, ideas for follow-up activities and lots of other information about all things Tumblerific!
Mr Tumble - we love you!