Primary Teaching Bloggers Ireland Blog Hop

Hello there and welcome to the Primary Teaching Bloggers Ireland first ever blog hop! You may have noticed an influx of Irish primary school teachers filling up your Facebook news feeds of late. Well, we've decided to get together and help one another to share our ideas and resources and to help you easily find resources specifically for the Irish classroom. 

At the bottom of this post, you'll be able to find links to other Irish teachers' blogs and Facebook pages. Have fun checking them out!

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So, to start, here's a bit about me!

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your teaching experience:
I'm Emer, from the depths of West Cork. I did my dip year in Ireland and then moved to Italy where I've been teaching in an international school for the last three years. I've taught 5th class in Ireland and I've taught children aged 5-8 in Italy.

What class level are your resources/ideas aimed at?
It varies hugely. A lot of my newest resources are specifically for IB schools but I make classroom decoration kits and behaviour management resources that apply to various schools and age levels. Also, if I see a great idea related to the Irish curriculum or another class level to mine, I'll happily share it. 

What made you want to start blogging?
I started this blog back in 2011 when there wasn't a big online presence from Irish teachers in the blogosphere. I loved how Seomra Ranga and Anseo.net shared up to date resources, ideas and teaching news specifically for primary school teachers. I was also really inspired by some American bloggers like Clutter Free Classroom and Step into Second Grade With Amy Lemons. I wanted to share resources specifically related to the Irish primary school curriculum as it's often hard to find stuff, especially in Irish. It's great to see people like Réalta Ranga, Ms Forde's Classroom and Ríona Kelly sharing quality resources as Gaeilge.

Would you advise other Irish teachers to start a blog?
YES! Go for it! I'm delighted to see so many new blogs in the last year or two. The more of us there are out there, the bigger the bank of resources and ideas for the Irish curriculum will be created. People ask if it's time-consuming. Yes, it can be but it's very addictive! 

What's your favourite free resource that you have shared?
These WALT and WILF posters for putting on or near your board. It's a great way to share learning objectives and success criteria with the children. I find it really helps them to focus on why we are doing certain activities.

What's your favourite paid resource that you have shared?
As excitement is building for the Rugby World Cup, this brand new resource pack is my current favourite! Come on Team Ireland!

To join in:
1. Create your own ID - Right click and save this ID template. Add in your details (You can use PowerPoint for this. Just add in text boxes and your image, highlight it all, right click and "group," then right click and "save as picture." Use whatever fonts and colours your please!)
2. Write a blog post using the same questions I have answered. If there's anything you don't want to answer publicly, just skip the question!
3. Make sure you include the "Primary Teaching Bloggers Ireland Blog Hop" image and link it back to this post.
4. Go to the bottom of this post and paste in the URL to your blog. Make sure the URL is directly to the relevant post and not just a general link to your blog's homepage.

If you have a teaching-related Facebook page but no blog, feel free to add a link to your FB page in the link up below!

An InLinkz Link-up