Welcome Back everybody!

Thought for today on what should be our first day back to school in a new term, but instead continues to be a very strange, unprecedented, and anxious time for everyone. I read this online over the holidays and thought I would share...

What if??? ❤️❤️❤️
If they cancel the rest of the school year, students would miss 2.5 months of education. Many people are concerned about students falling behind because of this. Yes, they may fall behind when it comes to classroom education...
But what if...❤️❤️❤️
What if instead of falling “behind", this group of kids are ADVANCED because of this? Hear me out...❤️❤️❤️
What if they have more empathy, they enjoy family connection, they can be more creative and entertain themselves, they love to read, they love to express themselves in writing. ❤️❤️❤️
What if they enjoy the simple things, like their own garden and sitting near a window in the quiet. ❤️❤️❤️
What if they notice the birds and the dates the different flowers emerge, and the calming renewal of a gentle rain shower? ❤️❤️❤️
What if this generation are the ones to learn to cook, organise their space, do their laundry, and keep a well run home? ❤️❤️❤️
What if they learn to stretch a euro and to live with less? ❤️❤️❤️
What if they learn to plan shopping trips and meals at home? ❤️❤️❤️
What if they learn the value of eating together as a family and finding the good to share in the small delights of the everyday? ❤️❤️❤️
What if they are the ones to place great value on our teachers and educational professionals, librarians, public servants and the previously invisible essential support workers like truck drivers, grocers, cashiers, custodians, logistics, and health care workers and their supporting staff, just to name a few of the millions taking care of us right now while we are sheltered in place? ❤️❤️❤️
What if among these children, a great leader emerges who had the benefit of a slower pace and a simpler life to truly learn what really matters in this life?❤️❤️
What if they are AHEAD? ❤️❤️❤️❤️

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Comment to say hello!
Hello everyone and welcome back to the blog! I hope you all had a nice Easter and made the most of the beautiful weather as best you could with all that's going on. You will have probably heard by now that schools will remain closed until further notice. Before we begin, I have some things for the Mammies and Daddies to note: Make sure they are listening up boys and girls :)
Parents:
I am going to share some fantastic resources that are now available for parents at home and are all free to access/download.

1. Collins Big Cat Readers - you will recognise these! I'm very happy that Collins are so generous that they have created a free account to access our readers (the login details are below). This means that the children can continue to practice their reading using what they are most familiar with. You can select 'Pink A'  or 'Pink B' on the left hand side which is the level that most of the children were at. I encourage you to move up levels if you feel the need but I ask that you only do so if the children are fully confident and fluent (reading without stopping or pausing) in reading the books in the level they are at first. Nobody likes reading material that is too difficult! Make sure they are not reading by heart, that you can pick out words at random and they can read them.  In general the Pink levels are for Junior Infants and this is the level most children would remain on this year so don't worry if you don't think they are able to move on to red etc.

2. Bua na Cainte - this is the Gaeilge Programme that we use. The Educational Company of Ireland (EDCO) have also allowed parents and teachers to download the programme! The Username is 'trial' and the password is 'trial'. You will need a desktop or laptop to download this so I know it will not be possible for everyone to get it, but I am going to trail screen recording lessons and upload them for you! It is a fabulous resource with content, songs, poems, games and printables all free, so do download if you can. The children absolutely love this. Just go to www.edco.ie/bua and follow the directions to download, and use the username and password above to get in.

3.         Twinkl - I have already mentioned this but just in case anyone missed it. Twinkl is a bank of resources for all subjects and this will be especially useful to you if you have a printer. You can create a free account by going to www.twinkl.ie/offer and use the code IRLTWINKLHELPS.

4.     Word lists - I have scanned Word Lists 1-18 below. I'm hoping you will be able to download and print if you have a printer. You may also wish to write them out in strips of paper or cut them up into word cards. You could even practice them online, it really doesn't matter which way as long as the children are practicing blending them.

Word Lists 1-18
File Size:	1978 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

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I am also going to share some websites and Youtube channels that might be useful to you.

      Monday 20th April
English:

1. Word lists (see new sets above), Reader (see how you can get online above) and sounds & tricky words.
2. NEWS: I bet you all have such wonderful news to share, especially because you have been on holidays for two weeks! I want you to share your news to someone at home and record your news like we do in our copies. I have left my news below! You don't need to write a sentence, but maybe try labeling your picture!
   
3. Dictation (video below). You will need to prep a page numbered 1-8.
4. Handwriting - w (video below)

Gaeilge:
FYI *** RTE's School Hub is on 'Éadaí' this morning so I've been told! Might be worth tuning in at 11am seeing as it's our Gaeilge topic***
The details to download Bua Na Cainte are above ^^ if you have a laptop or computer. You will be able to access everything.

1. Athrá (revision) 1-10
2. For those who can download the programme here is the lesson today:

       Éadaí: Ceacht 1

• Comhrá 1.1
• Amhráin (song)
• Cluiche (game): Tasc éisteachta

For those of you who do not have a laptop of PC, I have done a screen recording of the lesson. You will see it's not the best quality especially for the songs (if anyone techy knows of a good screen recording app for a PC please let me know of one in a comment, this is the Xbox game bar one and isn't great).

Maths:

1. Start and stop counting
   
2. Touch Counting
   
3. Sorting: We are going to revise all kinds of sorting this week. Today we will start with an easy one, sorting by colour. Find things in your home that you can sort by colour. Look at mine below as an example!
   

PE with Joe:
Here's something to give your brain a break before RTE's School Hub at 11am! I just love this show don't you? :)