It’s no doubt that home learning is far different from in school learning! Here are some fun, exciting and interesting links to different activities that can be enjoyed by students of all ages. If you visit the sites or do any of the activities, be sure to take some pictures and send them to your class teacher as we would love to see them!
- With thanks to https://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/healthandwellbeing/arid-40202144.html for some of these websites.
Chess Fun!
This is for anyone who would be interested in learning chess or continue to play chess remotely. If you already know how to play, you could challenge to teach a member of their family how to play using these videos. It is a full playlist explaining and modelling how to use each piece.
You can play online if you don’t have a chessboard at home.
https://www.chess.com/
General Education Websites:
| General Education: | Maths: |
| Starfall – Learn to read with Phonics, and learn Mathematics https://www.starfall.com/h/ Twinkl for Parents: http:// https://www.twinkl.ie/resources/parents/free-resources-parents/free-resources-for-parents-free-resources-parents Seomra Ranga Seomra Ranga was created by a Dublin primary school teacher in 2007 and features a range of free activities and resources, such as flashcards, poetry books, and educational bingo games. www.seomraranga.com Khan Academy Khan Academy is an international website that is highly recommended by many teachers and parents. Courses are broken up into multiple subjects and classes, helping you to create a personalised educational course for your child. www.khanacademy.org Education.com Education.com’s Learning Library contains a plethora of fun worksheets for primary level children, such as word searches, colouring books and writing exercises. www.education.com/resources RTÉ Learn RTÉ Learn contains tonnes of different activities for children as well as access to episodes of last year’s Home School Hub. www.rte.ie/learn | Top Marks Top Marks splits activities into age groups and levels ranging from the ‘Teddy Numbers’ game that helps toddlers learn to count to two-minute subtraction challenges for older children. www.topmarks.co.uk Tablestest.com Help your children learn their times tables by testing them on tablestest.com www.tablestest.com Prodigy.com Kids can play the Prodigy maths game for free on prodigy.com to help them learn equations in a fun and interactive way. www.prodigygame.com |
| Gaeilge | Music and Art |
| Séideán Sí Teachers love the Séideán Sí website for extra Irish vocabulary lessons for kids. You can choose your dialect and child’s class to find specific games and activities. www.seideansi.ie Cúla 4 ar Scoil While the Department of Education doesn’t endorse any websites in particular, a spokesperson did recommend TG4’s Cúla 4 ar Scoil programme, which is available on TG4 Player online. “The programmes follow a specific theme for each series of lessons. Each lesson has specific educational outcomes, and are presented in an engaging and entertaining style,” the spokesperson says. “In particular Cúla 4 ar Scoil offers an opportunity to hear a rich range of Irish language dialects from various Gaeltacht areas.” www.cula4.com/en Gaeilge le Chéile Gaeilge le Chéile was created with the aim of making learning Irish fun and its resources are a great way to make Irish a part of children’s daily lives during lockdown. www.gaeilgelecheile.weebly.com The website of An Chomhairle um Oideachas Gaeltachta agus Gaelscolaíochta also has links to many educational resources to support children’s Irish learning. | Songs in Irish Songs in Irish has over 600 Irish language songs in its online database with an English translation and Youtube link for each. Guitar chords are also provided for some songs. www.songsinirish.com Kidzbop Kidzbop’s Youtube page has hundreds of dance and singalong videos for children. www.youtube.com Cbeebies Cbeebies provides a host of quick and easy craft activities for kids on its website. www.global.cbeebies.com/make-and-colour Kids Activities Blog Kidsactivitesblog.com is a godsend for parents looking for child-friendly activities. Check out the 5-minute craft and drama activity sections of the website. www.kidsactivitiesblog.com Red Ted Art Look no further than Red Ted Art for all of your art class needs for children. www.redtedart.com Beat by Beat Press Discover the world of musicals with Beat by Beat Press in an interactive way to help with drama and music teaching. www.bbbpress.com |
| Geog/History/Science | English |
| The National Marine Aquarium has weekly Science lessons on a Friday including ‘Mermaid Tales Live’. https://www.youtube.com/user/NMAPlymouth/ National Geographic Kids You can find interactive games, videos, and fact sheets about everything from animals to the world’s wonders and climate change on National Geographic’s dedicated kids’ website. www.kids.nationalgeographic.com BBC Teach BBC Teach provides educational videos for children on topics ranging from nature to drama but teachers particularly like the website for its historical content. www.bbc.co.uk/teach History of Cork Any rebel parent wanting to teach their kids a little more about the rich history of Cork can lead them to this website for a crash course aimed at 5th and 6th class students. www.askaboutireland.ie/learning-zone Virtual exhibitions Take your child on a virtual field trip with the National Museum of Ireland and London Zoo’s free online exhibits. NASA STEM Engagement NASA has created a website dedicated to teaching children about science, technology, and space with tons of content for every age. www.nasa.gov/stem Frugal Fun Frugal Fun was created by an American mom who has been homeschooling her five children since long before Covid hit. Check out her Lego activities and STEM content for fun educational games. www.frugalfun4boys.com Ask About Ireland Learn everything you need to know about Irish history and geography from Ask About Irelands’ learning zone. Content is filtered by class and subjects. www.askaboutireland.ie | Collins Connect Access Collins’ reading resources and activities, no sign-up required, on the website’s school portal. www.connect.collins.co.uk Knoword Knoword has classroom vocabulary games and quizzes on its website to help enhance students’ knowledge. www.playknoword.com Handwriting Practice You can find worksheets to help students learning to write on handwritingpractice.net Oxford Owl Oxford Owl has an extensive free e-book library as well as reading activities for all ages and phonics lessons available on its website. www.home.oxfordowl.co.uk Audible Stories For those who struggle to sit down and read a book, Amazon’s Audible platform has a library of free audiobooks of all genres and levels for kids available on its website and app. www.stories.audible.com |
| Other Fun Websites and Activities: |
| The Great Isolation Activity Book The Irish created Great Isolation Activity Book can be downloaded and printed out for free online. The book contains pages of fun and creative activities for children as well as useful lessons in SPHE and wellbeing. Access the pdf here. PE videos There are loads of videos online offering free PE lessons for children to make sure they stay active during lockdown. The teachers we spoke to particularly liked fitness guru The Body Coach Joe Wick’s PE videos which are aimed young students. RTÉ Jr also started to create 10 minute PE videos for kids to help them stay active when Covid struck. You can access the videos here when the kids start bouncing off the walls and need to burn some energy. Yoga for Kids Adriene Mishler, or Yoga with Adriene as she is known to her millions of subscribers, also has a PE series available online for parents wishing to introduce their children to yoga. Cosmic Kids Yoga is a fun one that all the children enjoy in class: https://www.youtube.com/user/CosmicKidsYoga Chess for Kids: Play some fun mini games of chess and get to know the game: http://movesforlife.ie/our-mission/ Cooking for kids Why not get your kids involved in the kitchen and teach them some easy (supervised) cooking recipes when they can’t face sitting in front of a screen anymore? BBC goodfood has a section of recipes for children online and Cbeebies has created a Youtube playlist of instructional videos for young chefs. |
Students in 3rd – 6th Class might be interested in an online course that the older kids might like about how to use less plastic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kmlPzK6bFs&list=PL4pC5Um_aTFjxxAVm93DAy7W9fxsFnPJm