Magical rainbow adventure (melted crayon art!)

Kickthepj uploaded this video to YouTube today. He's created a picture by melting crayons (with a hairdryer). You might be interested in doing some form of crayon art and posting a video reply.... or merely using the idea to inspire an art lesson on colour.


WARNING: If using this in school, PJ uses the word "hell" and makes a joke about stripping (the crayons). You might want to edit/only show parts of the video!

St. Patrick's Day song - The Speks

St. Patrick's Day isn't too far away (just under three weeks). This is a very child-friendly St. Patrick's Day song which went down a treat for me last year when teaching it to 7 and 8 year olds. It's got a very simple chorus with obvious actions. You can download the track for free here. The lyrics are on this site. I created a PowerPoint with the lyrics too. You can download it for free on mash.ie (Iff you don't already have a mash account, it's free to sign up and you'll be able to download lots of great resources that are organised thematically.)

Giant paper snowflakes display

I came across this today and, though the weather should be getting warmer rather than snowier, I couldn't resist posting it. This is a very simple paper cutting, taping and stapling task and the results are beautiful. Click on the image to view LizMarie_AK's photo tutorial.

Grammar Ninja - identifying parts of speech

I had seen this game before I started blogging and had forgotten all about it.

Grammar Ninja does exactly what it says on the tin. It's a ninja-themed grammar game and a quirky way of letting children practicing identifying parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, etc.).

Schools in the past

My class have been studying the history of schools in Ireland recently. If you are near Dublin, it may be worth bringing your class to the Small Lives photographic exhibition at the National Library's Photographic Archive in Temple Bar. It's running until June 2012. If not, you can view photographs from it on their Flickr site.

The NLI have provided some lesson ideas based on photographs of a classroom in Waterford. Click here to download them. 


I also stumbled upon the wonderful AskAboutIreland.ie which is very child-friendly. I set the children the task of researching the history of schools in the country using this site. They loved using it. It's bright, packed with information, activities, illustrations and pictures. 


Upon further delving into the site, I found some great resources for SESE and Gaeilge. I particularly like the eBooks of Irish myths and legends. There's an audio option for differentiation too. One reservation I have about the site is that the standard of Gaeilge is quite high and that it may be more suited to scoileanna T1 and only senior classes in scoileanna T2. 

Win a 2012 Olympics set worth €115

There's a fantastic giveaway on mash.ie at the moment. You could win a guide to the Irish team at the 2012 Olympics worth €115 (kindly donated by Prim-Ed publishing). Mash.ie is a site for teachers to share links, images,  lesson plans etc. Resources are linked to themes so it's an excellent aid to thematic planning. I have previously blogged about how much I love this site. 

Entering the competition is simple. Any members of mash.ie (membership is free) earn points for adding, rating or commenting on content. All you have to do is earn 200 points by the end of the Easter holidays (that's the end of the second week of April). Anyone with 200+ points will then be entered into a draw for the prize.

So what are you waiting for? Hop over to www.mash.ie and get cracking!

This month's prize:

One to follow: ABC with Miss D

I came across this blog recently: ABC with Miss D. It has got fantastic ideas for ways in which to use literacy and numeracy centres. There are brilliant ideas on resources to use in each one. If you teach infants/kindergarteners, this is definitely one to check out.

Animal Kingdom self-assessment freebie

The children in my class have been studying the classification of animals in the animal kingdom. They completed projects (a week of SESE homework) in scrapbooks. This week, some of the children made oral presentations based on their projects. I then gave out assessment sheets where the children filled in information based on one of the presentations they had been listening to. There was also a self-assessment (traffic lights system) piece at the end. I created two differentiated assessment sheets. 


To download these, click on the image above.

Differentiating using the "jigsaw method"

This one's inspired by a recent lecture as part of the National Induction Programme for NQTs:


I'm going to try using the "jigsaw" method of differentiation this week where the children are split into groups. They are then sub-divided into colours. For example, you might have eight groups with a red, a yellow and a blue in each. Next, set a task for each colour. All the blues, reds and yellows group together and work on their task. Then the original eight groups (one yellow, one blue, one red) get back together and share what they have learned.

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I'm going to try this to teach stories about St. Bridget. 
There will be three different tasks:
1. The story of St. Bridget and the butter (on powerpoint - from a 2nd class history book - easy words, lots of illustrations)
2. The story of St. Bridget and the cloak (on powerpoint - middle-senior primary school reading level - harder words, some illustrations)
3. The life of St. Bridget and the origin of the cross (on paper - for those with higher reading abilities - difficult words, few illustrations)


They will then be put into threes to share the story they learned.