This blog has been going for a very long time; it wasn’t the first to be created out the ex-Muddlepuddle site, but it was one of the first – and i’ve enjoyed keeping it. But things have changed; over the last few years i’ve changed a lot and now i think it is time for a little more privacy, or i’m going to stop blogging altogether. It isn’t just me either; my daughters are reading, writing, thinking people with a right to privacy themselves (which perhaps they always had and i didn’t respect enough). With Fran going off to school now, her life will be different and i want to be able to make sure that even if her childhood is freely available, her adolescence isn’t.

I don’t want to be restricted by what i feel safe writing, because my blog has been valuable to me and i’m sure always will be. It has occurred slowly to me that i’ve stopped blogging in the wake of negativity i’ve encountered as a result of it, or fears i’ve had if i wrote what i needed to write. It’s a shame really, because right when i needed a blog most, i didn’t feel comfortable using it.

I’ve toyed with passwording the whole thing and i don’t really want to, nor do i want to mess around with individual post passwording, so i’ve decided to make some parts of my blog accessible only to people who know me, or are long standing readers/commenters. So i’ll be adding the ability to create an account over the next few days; if you do know me or if you have commented in the past, you really are welcome, so please do make one

Maddy is having a good time at the moment, really forging ahead with the kind of things she is interested in and wants to be about. She’s very self motivated, so if she has a science book filled with home based science, she’ll get on and do it. She also loves the structure of Education City, so will bomb through that. It is excellent for her; she grasps concepts very quickly so doesn’t actually need much input from me. It’s a very different experience this time round.

Finishing Year 4 maths in Education City.

She and i have been working through the GP book, dotting about somewhat to find things of interest to her. It isn’t an ideal way to use the books as they are very logical and laid out in a sensible linear fashion, but grinding through the practise for things she can do seems pointless. She’s loved fractions lately, grasped improper and mixed ones very quickly and converted them fairly effortlessly into decimals and percentages. Love that kid.

This week Maddy is deep in a set of Usborne encyclopedias, all of which have experiments threaded through them. I’ve set her a challenge to see how many she can do today.

Discovering how a salt solution affects an objects ability to float.

A Mummy add-on experiment to see what oil does when poured into water. Followed on nicely from a book we looked at last week about tanker wrecks and the effect on sea life and the environment.

Hopefully we’ll have a CGP booklet to back them up; she’s worked through a rock and materials one in the last 10 days and is half way through a review of the KS2 syllabus all on her own too. Like i say, love that kid

Lots of things have stopped me blogging for weeks; the best one of which was definitely this, our all new sparkly PlayMerrily Toys website, which has had the decency to be well received and instantly successful About a million things still to do on it but that’ll be fine

I can’t possibly remember all the little bits and bobs that have happened but luckily the calender has been stuffed full of nice little achievements and events so i’ll just recount those.

There have been a couple of lovely Latinetcs with science, languages and art mixed in; we’ve all enjoyed the combination of learning and friends that has brought.

We cancelled Fran’s op and instead the big 3 took part in the school talent show; they were in the top ten acts from the school and so in the final and although they didn’t get placed in the top 3, they were rather fab. HUGE conference hall, 400 people watching and they did beautifully. Simple, innocent, effective, perfectly sung. I was so proud The whole show was good and of course the girls were jealous of the freestyle classes, so will try that next term, just for fun That will put Fran up to nearly 6 hours of dancing a week

Fran has been invited to join the intermediate squad at gym, which puts her up to 5 hours of gym a week as well; she is thrilled about that, especially as it means a competition in May. Amelie has stayed in her Development group and is also going to the same class on a Saturday as well.

Fran played Cello in the Peterborough Music Festival, did excellently and got a Commended. Very nerve racking to watch and although it wasn’t the best she’d played and the piano threw her a little bit, she can be proud of herself. Unfortunately, being a perfectionist, she was cross not to have done better, but got told not to be silly

All the girls had dancing exams; musical theatre for all three, ballet for Fran and Amelie and also tap for Fran. Results next term.

We’ve been working quite a bit; lots of reading together and separately and test practises for Fran to get ready for school in May. Her first SATs papers yielded a Level 4 maths and a Level 5 Science, so i suppose, even if she still makes me screech, that we’ve done okay Maddy is forging ahead with all sort of things, very much enjoying science and maths and reading anything that moves.

Lovely party with lots of friends the other week, somewhat marred by the kids all being unpleasantly bug filled immediately we arrived and for the week afterwards. Was very glad to see Sarah and co here for a couple of nights, among all the other people.

Just blowing my own trumpet instead