Avila is 3 now, so the questions phase is well under way. “Why?” “How?” “What?” and so on….and on. Then on Thurday she asked me, completely out of the blue “Mummy, how do penguins die?”

“EH!” What on earth made her ask that? I answered her about, old age, killer whales eating them and so on, but honestly what goes on in little kids heads?

On a different note, Iona has received the dates for her IGCSE Maths exam; 15th and 20th May. She is a bit scared, but Nigel thinks she is ready. In Sept she will be yr 10 (UK) which would be the start of GCSEs and I need to decide what to do. As things stand she is working on her portfolio work and we will leave her English GCSE either until she goes to college, where she will get her dyslexia assessment for free-and the Eng. or we could pay for the assessment and then I would buy in the Oxford Eng OR she could do the IGCSE. As Iona is even more dyslexic than Alex I am very doubtful about the IGCSE. The fact is, they are much harder than the ordinary GCSE (which is undountedly why Universities prefer them) but I don’t want to set her up to fail.

And on yet another different note. We have started the DK Spanish and it seems pretty good. The lessons are much longer than the Linney Latin, but we are splitting them down and that suits Ronan well.

Karen has bought the Linney Latin and is starting it with her children.

I’ve also started the Carol Vorderman Science with Ronan. It’s very easy and he can do a page in a few minutes and earn his little gold stars. I am just introducing him to this before the Usborne Science books which are harder. We have started the Solar System with Usborne just because he is interested in that.