Ethany passed her level at swimming today!!  She now moves into Marlin's which she is very excited about.  It sees the end of pre-school swimming and she will now go with the 'big' school kids for swimming.  Unfortunately for me that means another trip to the pool each week for after school or weekend swimming.  At this stage I think we will go with a weekend class as our schedule during the week is full enough and really I want to be spending a little more time at home ramping up for when Ethany turns 5.

I'd like to get a little more writing out of her on a daily basis before things really step up for the 5yo year.  Today I introduced a scrapbook which can be used as a journal.  Draw a picture, write a sentence.  Today she drew and rainbow, with sky, clouds, sun and kite.  Her sentence read "this is a rainbow."  She got the period at the end but not the capital at the start but for a first go I was very impressed.  We did discuss the spelling of the words as she wrote them because she likes to get it right.

Math wise she amazed me today.  She knows how to work out her math facts using manipulatives or fingers (prof B/RS kind of way) but she hasn't had them memorised.  Well today she had quite a few of them down.  She was having so much fun with them she had me quiz her while she was taking her bath.  I think now that she is doing multi digit addition with regrouping she is seeing the need to get the other facts down.  She is enjoying that challenge so rising to the occasion.  I can't get over how well she visualises things.

Xavier had a good swim today.  Even the Mum's and Dad's who sit on the side commented how well he did today which is great.  The other little boy in his class is very encouraging which is soooo nice.  Imogen had a blast also.  She has worked out how to hold her breath without you having to blow on her face now and is really enjoying the free fall off the matt into the water.

The kids started listening to Roald Dahl's Matilda this afternoon and that had Ethany in stitches.  It has been a while between trip to the library for more audio so they are enjoying this new one.