Scoilnet Titanic Themepage
With the centenary of the sinking of the Titanic coinciding with the return to school after the Easter break, teachers may be planning to do some Titanic-related activities in the classroom at the beginning of the new term. A great place to start is the Scoilnet Titanic Themepage. It includes lots of links to activities and resources on the internet including lesson plans, photographs, eyewitness accounts, quizzes, museum links and stories. It’s a great resource to get your Titanic-themed lesson planning off to a great start.
Visit the Scoilnet Titanic Themepage HERE
Seomra Ranga to Close
It is with deep regret that I have to announce the imminent closure of the Seomra Ranga website. It’s been a great journey over the past five years but the time has come to re-assess the website and the time commitment involved in keeping it up-to-date. Through working on the website, I’ve met some great people involved in education in general and technology in education in particular, and this has been a very enriching experience both personally and professionally. However, the website has been a victim of its own success read more…
England’s Equivalent of Teaching Council is Abolished
The General Teaching Council (GTC) for England, their equivalent of Ireland’s Teaching Council, has ceased operations. From tomorrow, April 1st, the responsibilities for all of their activities is to be transferred to a “Teaching Agency” within the Department for Education. Michael Gove, England’s Education Secretary in the Coalition government, announced in June 2010 that the government was to abolish the organisation. read more…
Use a Counting Stick for Mental Maths
Using a Counting Stick for the development and mastery of Mental Maths skills is a great teaching strategy in the classroom. It can be used for teaching many concepts in maths from the most basic to more complex operations. It can be used with all age groups from Junior Infants to sixth class. It is also a great visual aid for visual learners.
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Teaching Council Registration Renewal Fee to be Reduced
The Teaching Council has announced its intention to seek the approval of the Minister for Education and Skills for a reduction in the annual Registration Renewal Fee from €90 to €65 with effect from January 1st, 2013. This will come as a welcome development to most teachers as the level of the Registration Renewal Fee has become a bone of contention and, indeed, is resented by many teachers. read more…
Digital Art Week 2012
Last year a great Digital Art Week was organised by myself, Simon Lewis (Anseo) and Fred Boss (NCTE) which the kids in my class thoroughly enjoyed. Planning is well advanced for this year’s Digital Art Week which will take place from 23rd – 27th April. The purpose of the week is to integrate the Visual Arts curriculum with technology and Social Media. During this week pupils will be given the opportunity to create pieces of art using technology – mobile technology, software or art websites. Pupils will then share their creations with other pupils and the world! read more…
Winners of “Fairy Tales and Fables” Competition
Thanks to all of the teachers and student teachers who entered our competition with O’Brien Press for a copy of “The O’Brien Book of Irish Fairy Tales and Legends” by Úna Leavy. It was a great success with 106 entries. Many thanks to O’Brien Press for sponsoring the prizes. Most of you found the questions quite easy, but just to confirm, the answers were: read more…
Stations of the Cross
Powerpoint presentation of the fourteen stations of the cross, with the name of each station and an illustration on each slide. Source: Lorna Smith (.ppt file 2.83MB) Download File…
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Apps to Support Literacy
Check out this article I wrote on Apps to Support Literacy in the Classroom for the March 2012 edition of InTouch, the INTO magazine for primary school teachers. The article mentions six different apps to support different aspects of literacy: Rory’s Story Cubes (oral language); Smiley Sight Words (building a sight vocabulary); Chicktionary (development of vocabulary); Simple Mind + (Mind Mapping tool); Brain Pop (listening and comprehension); Starfall (learning initial sounds).
(.pdf file 1.55MB)
QR Code Spelling Test
I’ve written some other posts on this site about how we are experimenting using QR Codes in the classroom (Our School Community QR Codes, Animal Homes QR Codes, QR Codes in the Classroom). This week I decided to try to integrate our weekly spelling test for my First Class pupils with QR Codes and Google Docs. We use the Jolly Grammar lists of words for learning weekly spellings. So, I used Google Docs to create a form for this week’s spellings. (Read this article I’ve written on how to create forms in Google Docs) read more…