Thank goodness for structure.

Well, if I’m strictly honest, thank goodness for structure AND Groovy Girls, since the younger two girls are spending a quantity of every day playing with them. Who would have thought that ‘groovy girl gym’ could be such an enduring game???? I’m not complaining though, they are so eager to get back to playing together that they both speed through music practise and all their work every morning at great and productive speed and then, so long as food is served up regularly, that’s the last I see of them. Luckily both of them are very happy with their ‘normals’ and so are putting in a good bit of work, Josie is reading more by the day and loving the drawing stuff we are doing and Amelie is reading lots so even if life needs to up its interesting level by a few notches, I don’t think either of them are unhappy with their lot.

Josie is ADORING being a 4 hour a week gymnast. She’s coming on in leaps and bounds there and loving it completely. Last week she did a forward roll on the high beam without any help, she’s cracked her round off and her beam cartwheel and all she talks about is gym. She’s even learning her first routine 😀

Amelie is getting ready for a competition next week; she also got a highly commended in her grade 2 ballet and came top of the class. She was very thrilled with her prize 🙂

Maddy on the other hand is being a complete dream just at the moment work-wise. She’s incredibly diligent when she’s inside her comfort zone and she’s pushing through verbal reasoning, non-verbal reasoning, maths, comprehensions and various Galore Park books she wants to finish off. While not desperately exciting in content, the CGP KS3 science books are giving her lots of jumping off points and meaning she can talk and do stuff with Max. She’s really liking the physics we have started at our WedEd days too, which is great. She’s deeply absorbed in the Lemony Snickett books just now, which is keeping her quiet 😆

I’ve started a new tack with maths, which is to work Maddy and Amelie together on topics. I’ve got a list of everything KS2/KS3 on it and we are ticking them off using various resources, from Maths Drills sheets to Galore Park and I’m just pushing each of them as far as they can go with the topic. It’s been a relatively painless way of doing things so far and, now that school is on our peripheral vision and I know they could all suddenly tumble in that direction, I’m happier knowing they’ve got age appropriate skills under their belt. Josie is still in that weird ‘maths is a game I play with numbers’ stage and as she’s working like a trojan at reading and maths will be easier once she’s got that skill, I’m leaving her to her games with it for now.

Fran is back at school and while the novelty has certainly worn off now, she seems to be enjoying it okay. She’s finding the geography hard, not the content but the question and answer style and the concept of revising for tests. Sport Science really suits her though and is inspiring her to have some form of career in that after she has gone as far as she can with dance. She plays in her first school netball game tomorrow (don’t ask me how, she only started playing 3 weeks ago) and I continue to get positive feedback about her. Learning to get homework done in plenty of time and use time wisely is still a challenge, but she is getting the hang of it.

This week she also got to choreograph her own new gym routine – and pick the music for herself from scratch. She absolutely LOVED doing that and the dining room was a dance studio for most of the week. And she scraped a commended in her grade 3 tap, despite it being the dreaded Miss H as the examiner and totally screwing it up. So she was passably happy.

As for me… well 🙂 I’m still here. Still knitting a lot. Doing the 366 Photo project over on my other blog. Reading a bit. Gestating. Trying to remain sane.

Piece of cake :/