Home schooling Update before we break up for a week

It's been rather a funny week.
We started of waiting for the ink cartridges to turn up as the printer ran out of ink and we could not print anything off , luckily I had some work already planned and prepared but I wanted to do a few things that needed ink for Valentines on  Tuesday so I held onto hope it would turn up by then, which it didn't .
I like to stay organised so needless to say I was not impressed the hubby who forgot to order it as I had requested the week prior. 

We were all still pretty tired and groggy from been unwell last week but luckily we felt better enough not to be sitting about hiding under duvets , nor were there any more need for medicine routines or sleepless nights so we were very much ready to start with a fresh new theme or two.

I've found that if the children choose about 2 or 3 themes a week , it works well with finding subjects around those themes to keep them engaged and interested without over loading there concentration spans.

This week there were a few pieces that were left over from weeks prior for them to finish such as reading comprehensions  and a few maths worksheets but other than that we were set to discover something new.

On Tuesday , you may have realised that most of us were celebrating Valentines or at least knew someone that was and so I took this opportunity to share with them the meaning of Valentines by teaching them about Saint Valentine. 
We were interested to find that the Emperor of Rome banned Marriage so that his army could concentrate not on their woman but instead fighting to win.
We made some pretty fun crafts and if you keep an eye out you may see a post regarding our valentines day and how we celebrated . 

Trying to encourage the children into reading more , I thought it only fitting that with it being Charles Dickens Birthday celebrations this week that we should look further into the famous writer and his novels that have become some of the most famous to date.
Great Expectations seemed one of the most memorable I can remember watching as a child and although they were not so keen on watching a black and white film , they soon settled into realising it had a great story line to it and the Victorians in the mid 19th century lived rather a very different life t how we do now.
We looked back at other novels he had made such as A Christmas Carol which they seemed to be more familiar with as well as Oliver Twist.

Being that Twinkl had been celebrating Kindness week and International acts of kindness week for the past two weeks we thought we could join in on the fun due to Kaiden the youngest of the boys (bar his baby brother) picking up a book form the library about bullying.
I thought it would be a great way to introduce bullying to him and the older children got to find out some interesting historic events such as learning about Ghandi , the preeminent leader of India who faught for Civil Rights.
They learned that Kindness is about respecting others and their own beliefs , individuality , religions and styles and that bullying in any form is unacceptable .  
I was very proud that he had chosen this subject on his own and I'm overjoyed to see my children have no stereotypical judgements regarding differences in people . This is something important to me and I hope I teach them this is also appreciated throughout their adult life to.

It seemed to become  a rather crafty week this week and not only were these events celebrated but we also have two birthdays this week too, Leon turned 8 on Wednesday and Philip turns 15 on Saturday so we're looking forward to having a family party on Saturday with balloons and banners and of course we've got a very special cake ordered .

Next week we will be taking a rest with school work as it's Spring Half Term although we still end up having some sort of fun and the learning never stops in our house . 
​What are your plans next week, have you learned anything new ?