Introducing Text Types CD-ROM (Prim Ed)

Introducing Text Types is a CD Rom published by Prim Ed.  It’s a very simple presentation package which outlines the 6 different types of writing the average senior primary student will encounter - Discussion, Explanation, Narrative, Procedure, Recount and Report.  To be honest, I was a little disappointed.  There’s nothing wrong with the CD as such.  I suppose it’s like buying a DVD and getting the film with no extra features. Read rest of story…

I’m new to this site. Hoping someone can help me out with few questions. Ok here is my story. I have just recently been accepted on to Hibernia course for Oct 09 & am hoping to make head start on the work thats ahead…hoping some nice person can point me in right direction in how to develop lesson plans…any good reading guides, internet site…i know i sound all eager but cant wait to get stuck in!!!

When I began JP I was eager for the children to begin using readers and I bought a set of Little Phonics First Books:

http://www.syntheticphonics.net/product.php?id=21

To begin with, when you haven’t covered too many sounds, the text in these stories may seem uninspired, however the children have such a sense of achievement because they are actually reading independently, that that doesn’t seem to bother them at all. Read rest of story…

A couple of years ago when Ireland had money, the government, through the National Centre for Technology in Education, the NCTE, decided to pay a company to develop an email system for teachers.  Every teacher was going to be given an email address @scoilnet.ie  I was one of the teachers chosen to pilot it in my school so I went for the training.  There was nothing particularly wrong with the system apart from the fact that it wasn’t very good.  Read rest of story…

There’s an interesting debate going on on Education Posts, http://educationposts.ie/forum/viewtopic.php?id=20226, regarding teachers taking a paycut in order to save the jobs of colleagues who will be gone due to the increase of class sizes.  Instantly there was a barrage of “not before hell freezes over” before some interesting points were raised about our current conditions.

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It’s 693.  It’s really easy to multiply any two digit number with 11.  It’s a great trick to play with a 4th or 5th class as a mental warm up to a maths class.  If you’re old fashioned and still do the 11 and 12 times tables with your class, this can be a great extension too.  Everyone finds it easy to multiply single digits with 11, (repeat the number - 4 x 11 = 44), but it’s not the same easiness when you get to 11 x 11 and 11 x 12…or is it?

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After 3 years, my trusty laptop died.  In its day it was a great laptop sporting 1GB of RAM and lots of other geeky stuff.  I knew its time had come when I had to resign myself to sending it to a repair shop.  After a couple of goes, the repair guy gave me the sad news….it was over.

Like a nerdesque organ donor, I told him he could take the “good bits” from the laptop and after a period of mourning, I headed to PC World to buy a Netbook.  Read rest of story…

Here are a few suggestions,

Possible Resources:

• ‘ng’ grapheme card and a set of (magnetic) cards including all graphemes introduced to date
• Picture cards eg. someone singing a song/string/ a bird or an aeroplane with both wings visible/ a ping pong bat for table tennis….
• A chart with the words: sing/song/singing/wings/ping pong written but with the ‘ng’ in a different colour marker

Step-by-step… Read rest of story…

Hi there!

Am so excited re the holidays which are fast approaching! With one week to go, I know the class are going to be going slightly more mental than usual! Before every celebration or big event, i.e. Halloween, Easter, Christmas or Bank Holdiays, certain members of my class will start to lose the plot, get overexcited and become hyperactive little aliens. Read rest of story…

From RTE news web site:

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