Home Learning (COVID-19)
During these unprecedented times, many parents/guardians have been concerned and unsure about how to cope with home learning. Teachers have suggested material specific to each class level and this work can be found here or under the ‘Classes’ tab above.
The material on this page is additional to support parents/guardians if they would like more activities for their child(ren) to engage in. This is listed below in the form of Project Homework. Again, this is simply an additional support.
Use the table below to pick your activities. Some of the activities have a link to click on for more information. Others link to a website with further instruction. Finally, there are lots of teachers outside of the school making YouTube videos, Instagram Stories, and all sorts of other ways to help your child learn each day.
RTÉ Learning Hub
RTÉ are also airing a special one-hour daily home school programme designed for 1st-6th class pupils. The programme will take place each day starting on Monday 30th March from 11am -12pm on RTÉ2. The programme will also be available on RTÉ Player and more information is available from https://www.rte.ie/learn/ .
Body and Mind
HIIT Homework
Each day (Monday to Friday), Joe Wicks (The Body Coach) is doing a special HIIT PE class workout at 9am on his YouTube Channel. It’s a great way to start the day and he varies exercises from an infant level to teenagers/adults. This is also saved on his channel so even if you miss it at 9am, you can take part later in the day. You need no equipment and the exercises are fun and easy. Try it out here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAxW1XT0iEJo0TYlRfn6rYQ
OR
Stick on your favourite upbeat playlist and try out these exercises one after the other. To give yourself a bigger challenge, do each circuit twice or three times or more!
| Session 1 – 5 x 25 | Session 2 – legs moving | Session 3 – up and down |
| 25 jumping jacks25 squats25 seconds run on the spot25 push ups25 seconds plank | 30 seconds run on the spot30 seconds high knees30 seconds jumping jacks30 seconds butt kicks30 seconds jog on the spot | 30 seconds jumping jacks30 seconds mountain climbers30 seconds run on the spot30 seconds plank30 seconds burpees! |
OR
Have a family disco – stick on your favourite tunes and bop around the room for 20 minutes!
Get Outside
Try out as many of these exercises outside (keeping social distance!) that you can and tell your teacher which ones you’ve done.
| Cycle your bike for 10 minutes. Go for a walk. Ride your scooter for 10 minutes. Draw your own hopscotch with chalk and play. Throw a ball against a wall and catch. Create your own obstacle course. Run for 5 minutes. 10 minutes of free play outside. | Jump on your trampoline. Walk your dog. Bubble bashing – get someone to blow bubbles for you to try and burst all of them. Do 3 laps of your house or up and down the hall 10 times. Keepie uppies – how many can you do in a row? Even try the challenge many famous footballers are doing at the moment with a toilet roll. Skip sideways up and down the garden 5 times. |
Skype/Facetime with a Relative/Friend
This can be a nice idea if you have a family member who may have to self-isolate or who you may not be able to visit. Or just a friend who unfortunately we can’t have playdates with at the moment. It’s a way for children to use oral language and it might be a nice kind of game to play to keep boredom away.
Ideas include:
- Play 20 questions – take turns in thinking of an object and the other person can only ask questions which have a yes or no answer.
- A-Z – Pick a topic and take turns in naming something beginning with A then B then C and see if you can get to Z Without skipping any letters.
- The Big Interview – child prepares 10 questions they’d like to know about the relative and then asks them
- More ideas here: https://www.fluentu.com/blog/educator-english/esl-vocabulary-games/
Irish Times
Even if you can’t speak Irish, there are some great ways to pick up some vocabulary. One really easy activity is to pick a topic, for example: food, household objects, colours, and so on, then write down 20 words associated with that topic in a list. Next go to https://www.focloir.ie/en/ and translate the words. The great thing is that almost every word on the website has an audio recording of it so you can listen to how to pronounce the words! As a family, you could try and learn a few words every day!
For more advanced speakers, how about doing any of the tasks in the grid through Irish? The news is probably the easiest one to do as Gaeilge.
Another idea is to sign up to https://www.duolingo.com/course/ga/en/Learn-Irish to learn some Irish – 5 to 10 minutes a day and who knows how fluent you’ll be when you get back!
The Daily News
This task can be done with any age from Junior Infants to 6th class. It can be done in a number of ways but here is a suggestion for 2 different age groups:
| Infants to 1st Class | 2nd Class Upwards |
| Child tells you the news they have for the day. Stick to things in their own life rather than focusing on the news on the radio or TV. The day, the date, the weather outside1 or 2 things they did yesterdayWrite down what they tell you on a whiteboard or piece of paper.Child either types out what you’ve written or copies it down in a journal or copybook.You can create your own little newsroom on the kitchen table or you can use Green Screen apps on an iPad and record your child reading their news. You can upload the video to Google Classroom or send it to loved ones to keep in touch. | Child writes/types their news as well as news happening outside the world. You can create your own little newsroom on the kitchen table or you can use Green Screen apps on an iPad and record your child reading their news. You can upload the video to Google Classroom or send it to loved ones to keep in touch. |
Read a Book with a Parent
Snuggle up on the couch and spend ten minutes reading for no other reason than the joy of reading a book. Of course, there are loads of benefits to reading every day but what a nice time to drop everything for a short time.
Family Tree
Make your family tree with your child. You can do this digitally or by hand and you can go back as far as you want!
BIGGER PROJECTS
These instructions are for these projects:
- The History of my Family An extension of the Family Tree Project – tell us about your family
- Peace: What does peace mean to you? How will we get there?
- Who is your favourite artist? Tell us something about your favourite artist – A singer? A painter? A poet?
- My Holiday Tell us about your last holiday
Here are some ways you can produce it for your teacher
- Write it! Make your project on paper and bring it to school when we get back. (No bigger than A3 please!)
- Type it! Using Word, Pages, Google Docs (whatever is available!), make your project adding text, images and maybe video.
- Build it! Using whatever materials you want, build and make your project.
- Present it! Make a Google Slideshow/PowerPoint/Slides about your project.
- Make a Book! Use Book Creator on an iPad/Tablet/laptop to make a book about your project.
- Video it! Grab a phone and hit record then we can arrange for your teacher to get it when we get back to school.
- Your way! Present your project in whatever way you want – whether it’s a virtual tour or even a podcast, do what you like!
You can do this project in Irish or English.
A Sketch A Day
If you have a copybook or sketchpad, this would be useful but you don’t really need anything except paper and a pencil. Your job is to create one sketch a day for the duration of the project. The only catch is you have to pick a theme. Choose from:
- Healthy Foods
- Happy Things
- Things that need batteries
- Famous People
- Objects that are usually red
Learn a musical instrument
Do you have a musical instrument at home? If not, it’s not too expensive to get yourself a tin whistle, recorder or even a ukulele. It’s never been easier to learn with loads of apps and websites to bring you along the way.
Tin Whistle:
Piano / Keyboard:
Ukulele: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bTE5fbxDsc
Puppet Show
Making a puppet show can be a fun way to spend some time and there’s lots of different ways to do it now.
- Make a sock puppet – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-mfUBQE3_s
- Make finger puppets – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eq370x_lvo
- Make an online Puppet Show – Puppet Pals App
The main thing is to write the scripts and record them! If you have a puppet show stage, great; if not, use a table to hide underneath!
Hit the Button
Many of the children will be familiar with this game to help children learn number bonds, times tables, division facts etc. It is a game that can be played from Infants (basic to 10 Number Bonds) up to 6th class (Square Numbers, decimal number bonds) and all in between. It is not available as an app but will work through tablet internet browsers (Safari or Internet etc.) Get practising!
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button
Cool Patterns
Patterns are everywhere – some of them simple like the sequence of a traffic light and some of them are really difficult like the swirls on a snail’s shell. Your job is to make a pattern using any medium you want. You could knit a scarf in 2 different colours or you could build a tower using Lego with different patterned levels. You could even write a long sequence of numbers that follow a pattern. Be inventive and try and think of something someone else might not do. Upload your results to your Classroom or show it to your teacher.
