edited to add a potted summary of yesterday! chris took the girls to his parents, SB did piano and a neglibile bit of maths. Hooray, she has ordered some new glasses [hope we keep these for more than 5 seconds!] played a complicated game with chris’s mum, swimming lessons.
with the poxy chickens on the loose, and the incubation period set to be party-easter [and i couldn't bear to miss either!] we, reluctantly, couldn’t do the normal latinetc 
and nots and tots tomorrow so are thinking about vaccination of BB!
but, luckilly the littlest puddle girl hasn’t had either, and due to v similar reasons, avoiding the poxy chickens too. SO we had notlatinetc here! it was going to be a later start, so SB did piano and timewasting [how fab is she at that!!] and then got stuck into her new Bond First Papers in Verbal Reasoning: 
andBond Assessment Papers – First Papers in Non-verbal Reasoning 7-8 years
books – which she thinks are just fab! since these are the first she has done, i got her the lower of the 2 poss years, but she is finding them v easy. so that’s good as gets her confident, and should race through a bit!! to buy books for one and not the other is daft, so a quickie amazon order, and SB also got Space Heroes: Amazing Astronauts: Amazing Astronauts (DK Readers: Level 3)
, which she has taken to bed to read and My First Theory Book
whilst BB got The Day of the Dinosaurs (Cartoon History)
and The Rock Factory: A Story About Rocks and Stones (Science Works)
which she later complained weren’t really books, but were – aargh! must ask chris the term she used, my brain is hopeless! [added by Chris – she called them ‘about books‘]Â obviously SB has taken them to bed to read too… [so bb has a point!]
BB got out the gears gears gears [Wacky Wigglers™ Set
etc sets] and was having fun when Merry and girls arrived. they all got straight into investigating gears and making the Learning Resources Gears! Gears! Gears! Dizzy Fun Land Motorized Set
, and SB and Maddy read some french together. merry and i got science ready, as some of the natives were getting restless! we started with talking about building blocks of food, and then looked with iodine at which common foods contained starch. this was pretty good fun! led into the next section with maddy noticing the paper also turned starch a bluey black colour, so we did secret writing with lemon juice. A pause for lunch, and then we iodine washed them to see the pictures underneath. the bigger 4 then played with a fab kit that merry is stocking, Kidzlabs – Spy Science – Secret Message Kit
, which is absolutely fab, and comes with my full recommendation! The big 4 did all but the last bit, and then went outside to play – and used the kits in some convoluted game! the little 2 had been playing beautifully with the gears together, making up a story, and then played together outside happily.
After clearing out the table again! we got out the fimo masterclass of bunnies! maddy and SB elected to continue playing outside, and the other 4 made v creditable bunnies based on Sculpey Oven Bake Clay Furry Friends
[for a change!] bB keeps getting sore eyes with fimo-ing, and is rubbing them alot at the mo, so i had her a damp cloth to dab her eyes. not sure what else to do, as she loves fimoing.
Some more wild running around, and a snack of a loaf of bread between 6 kids – where do they put it all?? then home for merry and girls. didn’t get around to the music, or french. we watched a rather odd dr who episode, had tea and then girls to bed!
