Update Of Our Home Schooling Journey

Hi everyone , hope you are all well.
It's been an interesting week in the Prince household this week again.
We decided that we would choose quite a few interesting subjects to work with this week and here's how we got on.

St Brigid's Day - 1ST February
Libby took an interest in learning about St Brigid's Day .
She made a mosaic of the cloak field, a St Brigid Cross and found some interesting facts about how the Cloak turned into a Church .
I think the bright colours of the field in her work was what originally attracted her with this subject.

​It's National Heart Week- Feb 1st - Feb 28th
We wanted to take part in this due to knowing family and friends that have been and are still going through heart conditions and defects . 
I also thought it was a good idea to teach the children about the heart and how it effects us , what makes it healthy and how it works.
Leon Especially took a very big interest in this subject . We learned how to take a pulse, when it slowed and became faster with certain activities we do and also played heart dominoes and had a few spellings of some rather tricky heart related words.
I bet you cant tell us what a Pulminary is can you, take a look ?
My aim is to teach them a new word at least each week from the dictionary . 

Kind Gesture -
Due to having a little boy locally to us who was born with a condition called 'Hypo plastic left heart syndrome' and knowing how much the little boy had gone through for him and his family, we decided to make them something little to celebrate Heart Week.
The little ones made a card and stitched hearts onto it.
The previous day  we found out that little Lennox had been enjoying playing with some paper so we made some little twirly sparkles for him to play with on the card.
We then decided to all give him a heart beat from each of us and so the children all placed a heart with their name on and an extra for Lennox inside a heart shaped box they made also. 
They popped a couple of bags of chocolates in for Lennox and his two brothers and we took a walk to their house where they gave it to his mummy .
They were so happy with what they had done and I felt so proud of them for taking such an interest in National Heart Week.

PenPals.
Last summer we took a few holidays camping and on one occasion Drew found a friend she had grew rather close to while we were there. They exchanged address and unfortunately her dad lost the paper in the folding camper that had been stored away until this summer. Luckily for her , her dad found it and gave it to her last week and so this week when we decided to sell the camper, we're rather excited to be not so cramped into one camper and have to put the teenagers into a tent next to us due to legalities of camping now so instead we're all of to stay in a nice big static for a week in August , beach, fresh air and fields to run in , perfect.
​Her challenge this week was to Write to her friend and start the pen pal process and I'm hoping she gets a response . It would be lovely for her to make new friends .
Drew drafted up her letter then copied it onto the computer where she also printed a small picture of herself to place inside with it and we're all now ready to post it in the morning. Fingers crossed .

National Storytelling Week - Jan 30th - Feb 6th
​Another event this week we wanted to take advantage of was National storytelling week as Kaiden was rather interested in Wolves this week, so he chose Little Red Riding Hood and Mr Wolfs Pancakes.
There were so many fun and playful resources on Twinkl.co.uk for the kids that we've enjoyed quite a variation of activities and work for them to keep them fully engaged.

Pancake Lesson.
As part of the Wolf and the Pancake story we decided to take a more hands on approach and made some massive fluffy pancakes .
The children learned how to measure food with weights and other measuring utensils and learned how to mix and combine the ingredients to make the pancakes.
We had great fun getting a little messy but the end result was a tasty one.
Of course we were all covered in chocolate, squirty cream and golden syrup. flour and eggs afterwards.

The children decided that they wanted to re-enact the story of The Little Red Riding Hood and put on a play.

My eldest daughter asked to do a little work on Art so I decided to give her a little lesson on 'The Scream' by Edward Munch and she made her own interpretation of it using a self image into the picture.

We seem to be getting into the swing of things now and have our next week planned out already .
Twinkl.co.uk is a great help , everything I need there at hand so It's making homeschooling all of them so much easier.
The children are really enjoying themselves and I can see a massive change in them already , even in such a short time of being home schooled.

I have realised they want more a hands on approach and although I do want them to use pen to paper activities and work I have also realised I need to stock up and invest in a large arts and crafts area. I have loads of space so this is not an issue it's mainly getting the products in bulk being so many of them . Glitter tubs, glues, tissue paper and sequins and cut outs , card and rolls of paper, it all needs buying . It's a shame we don't get funded like the schools do to supply it for them .
We will get there eventually, it won't happen over night but already I can see we're going to have a great first year .


​