…said the Sing Song of Old Man Kangaroo. Fran has been listening to Just So Stories from Audible, so she knew this one and joined in with gusto. We’ve done stories early today, at the end of a pleasantly educational day; i started reading this just to Fran as the other two refused to listen, but they drifted over and were enthralled by the end. No one took me up on my offer of animal-ed at the end, but perhaps i’ll try again tomorrow.

We started the day by getting back to “normals” – it has been about 6 weeks since we did pretty much anything. Fran was a bit rusty on her maths, but it came back, Maddy had come on in leaps and bounds. Fran’s numbers had gone backwards but she agreed to a practise page to help with them. She did another area page but that was enough for her. Maddy wrote all her words from her flowers on to hearts in a little book i have made her. Her recall was pretty much perfect on those and she read really well from a P&J book too – 2a i think. Amelie played Pooh Bear Preschool and Reader Rabbit – and still is. Then Maddy requested the Jolly Phonics videos (without prompting in any way!) so i went and dug them out of the ebay box and she has been glued to them. Aside from Cbeebies, i really can’t get them to watch tv at all atm, it is quite disconcerting!

Managed to get through lunch without dairy for Amelie; this is rather more difficult than i imagined! Have to say though, she is much happier already. She is having goats milk for breakfast and as little other dairy as i can manage without reading up properly. She is also getting lots more sleep and being max-ed out on attention so i can’t say what is making the most difference, but it is definitely helping. I always knew that more milk made Maddy more introverted, but it was a tough thing to call with her, so maybe it would be no surprise if it didn’t suit Amelie.

Then i let them loose in their room with pink heart and purple flower stickers for the walls; they had a lot of fun with those. I managed to let my control-freakery lapse and not worry about how it actually looked!

This afternoon i got them to do their “chores” which i have to say is proving remarkably easy and actually makes a big difference to how the house feels. Then Fran and Maddy vacuumed the two downstairs rooms between them and we got out Magic Maize.
(More recently you can buy it here:- Playmais Dragon Box)

I bought a tiny amount of this with my xmas elc order, didn’t pick up more in town when i saw it at the weekend and really wish i had now. We had the opitec version once before and they ignored it – but today they had a ball and were very creative for them!

Here are a few more photos of yesterday too (but mixed in with todays i’m afraid as i am trying to sort out a set of arts and crafts) – i’m determined to be more organised with photos this year as doing my ed report has been a pain. I’ll have to go through and rename some of these. I shan’t bore you with a picture by picture version of the day!

Did take some that i loved of them today though.

and also

Can’t you just hear it? “Am i bothered?”

Must go and try and wake up Josie now though. She had a bad night last night and is resisting day time naps like a pro. I keep telling her i expect her to have them for another 2 years yet, but she isn’t listening…