If you work in an Educate Together school, one of the biggest challenges is collating resources to teach the Learn Together programme. While in some ways, it’s great that there isn’t the “ball and chain” of a textbook for this subject and each school has the potential to create a unique programme for their school, … Read more
Reading with Phonics:Phonics in context-Early Readers( Prim-Ed) Reading with Phonics is a set of 3 books which are designed to develop pupils’ phonemic awareness through a text with related worksheets. This allows the pupils to practice the sound being taught while reading and comprehending the text. Each sound has 2 stories based around the same … Read more
One device that hasn’t “gone viral” in a big way in Irish classrooms is the learning response system. These voting devices have been around for as long as Interactive Whiteboards but haven’t really proved as popular. For those of you unfamiliar with Learning Response Systems (LRSs), a short guide can be read here. I have … Read more
Last week, I reviewed CDGA’s software Reading Tracks 1. I thought that the content was strong but graphically, it needed a lot of work. I was expecting something similar, therefore, when I had a look at eGaeilge 1, an educational program to help support consolidating Gaeilge in classes. The makers of eGaeilge have aimed the … Read more
Think Green are a new 5-book series from Prim-Ed that aim to teach environmental studies in an inclusive classroom. The 5 titles cover water conservation, global warming, recycling, alternative fuels and Go organic. The books pass the “flickability” factor as in they are colourful, bright and appealing with lots of up to date photographs. However, … Read more
“India-a cross curricular theme” is a new set of 3 photocopiable teacher resource book that is aimed at the lower, middle and higher levels of the primary school setting. The Lower would be suitable for a good 1st and 2nd class, the middle for 3rd and 4th class with the upper level suitable for 5th … Read more
Reading Tracks is the first in a series of educational games designed and written for the Irish market. The company behind the programme is CDGA Education and Training. In a nutshell, this is a 25 unit spelling scheme with 6 eBooks. Each unit and eBook have activities associated with them. When you load Reading Tracks … Read more
Exploring Visual Arts is a new 3-part series divided into 3 age brackets. 5-7, 8-10 and 11+. It comes with a CD which contains all colour images in the book. It costs €22.95 per book Relevance to curriculum aims: 1/5 The publication is not based on the Irish Visual Arts curriculum. This book is a … Read more
When I received the package of Handwriting books from Prim-ed, I must admit, I wasn’t excited. The phrase “Never judge a book by its cover” comes to mind here! These new textbooks is different. After using it, they clearly are a set of very attractive books for children and teachers. But, there are other things … Read more
In Ireland, we use a lot of technology resources from other countries. Our market is tiny with only around 3,500 schools so a company selling a product for €100 is hardly going to make a profit after paying costs if they don’t sell to hundreds of schools. We’re lucky that the Irish primary curriculum has … Read more