All further information to parents while the school is closed will be posted on the School Closure page.
Many Thanks
Many Thanks
All further information to parents while the school is closed will be posted on the School Closure page.
Many Thanks We have been experiencing a problem with our school email this week and have had to set up a new address.
All future correspondence will go from our new address: [email protected] We are sending out test mails to all parents today from the new address-please check and let us know if you receive the test mail. Many Thanks. As mothers around the world struggle to keep their nearest and dearest safe and well during this worrying and uncertain time let us take this opportunity to wish all our Mums a happy and relaxing day on Sunday.
While we have no art souvenir to remember 2020 by we will always remember it as the year when a microscopic virus forced the entire world to pause and be grateful for all that we have been given. Happy Mother's Day Burgess Mums. Siobhán our Yoga teacher has kindly sent us a link for a free virtual yoga class that older children, teenagers and even stressed Mums and Dads will enjoy!
Siobhán is going to prepare one for younger children over the following days and we wil share it with you once it's available. Many Thanks for sharing this with us Siobhán. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiPRZ_TlrPI Dear Parents see the message below from Reading Eggs and Maths seeds-well known programmes that we have used in the past in Burgess NS to suppport literacy and numeracy development.
"Reading Eggs and Mathseeds are an excellent way to help children continue building essential reading and maths skills from home with the COVID-19 outbreak and event of school closures. Our mission has always been to make learning easy and fun for young learners, and we feel there’s never been a more important time to do this. That’s why we’d like to offer you 30 days’ free access to the Reading Eggs and Mathseeds programmes. This is our effort to ensure your child can continue learning at home with a quality educational resource designed by experienced educators and used by over 10 million children worldwide. It's easy to start your free 30 days’ access:
Your 30 days’ free access will let your child enjoy all our premium learning programmes: Reading Eggs Junior (ages 2–4): Fun activities, videos and songs help toddlers build alphabet knowledge, early phonics skills, vocabulary and handwriting skills. Reading Eggs (ages 3–7): Research-driven lessons focus on phonics, sight words, spelling and comprehension skills. Reading Eggspress (ages 7–13): Core lessons focus on building reading comprehension skills, helping children uncover meaning in texts. Mathseeds (ages 3–9): 200 lessons that teach essential maths and problem solving skills, covering pre-kindergarten skills to Year 3 topics. Reading Eggspress Library (ages 5–13): 2500+ books spanning quality fiction, poetry, drama, classics and nonfiction books. You will also have access to over 500 printable worksheets, which are helpful for letting your child practise their reading, writing and maths skills offline. There are also detailed lesson plans if you’d like to support your child’s home learning even further. Reading Eggs (for ages 3–7) The worksheets under the Reading Eggs tab set out clear learning objectives, so you know exactly what your child is working on. The activities build phonics and writing skills, as well as simple vocabulary and spelling. Reading Eggspress (for ages 7–13) The Reading Eggspress worksheets are conveniently sorted by year level. There’s a set of worksheets that correspond with each comprehension and spelling lesson in the programme, allowing your child to master key literacy skills for school. Mathseeds (for ages 3–9) There’s a set of worksheets for each of the 200 lessons in Mathseeds, covering all the skills your child needs to get ahead in school. The wide variety of activities will keep your child motivated to practise their skills and develop a sustained interest in maths. Reading Eggs Junior (for ages 2–4) The early learning skills covered in Reading Eggs Junior help toddlers build pre-reading skills that set them up for reading success. There’s a fun and colourful range of printable activities you can download here for free. We hope that you and your family stay safe in these uncertain times. In the meantime, follow us on Facebook and Instagram to receive tips on how to make the most of Reading Eggs and ensure your child doesn’t fall behind with their learning. Each child is entitled to a maximum of two bonus access codes per year. Please note free access is available until 19th April 2020. If you have any questions, please email our friendly customer service team at [email protected]. Best wishes, The Reading Eggs Team Dear Parents, the INTO has collected some practical tips and tricks on home-based learning, during the current school closure.
Free writing Many pupils will be familiar with the concept of “free writing” and may have a special notebook or journal in which they write freely about any topic of choice, and in any genre. This is a simple idea that can be continued in the home setting. Children have the autonomy to decide what they wish to write about and there are a variety of different styles that they can practice:
https://www.mystorybook.com/ Letter writing Post from a pen-pal and the anticipation of awaiting the arrival of a response may be lost in our global world where social media has taken over the art of writing, but this may be the time to resurrect that magic! Another interesting idea is to chart the journey of a letter from the writer to the recipient. An Post have an educational resource on their website https://www.anpost.ie/anpost/schoolbag/primary/our+people/the+journey+of+your+mail/ Children can also design their own stamp or begin a collection of stamps and look out for special commemorative stamps that were commissioned by An Post to celebrate a particular occasion. Lists If parents are venturing out to shop and stock up on groceries, children can help by writing the list of what is needed. Depending on the age of the child, elements of mathematics could be incorporated here estimating prices and weights etc. Children could also work out which option is better value (e.g. two individual boxes containing 80 teabags or one box with 160 etc.) Book review We all know that a grá for reading is one of the most important gifts that we can pass on to our children. Use this opportunity to read a wide selection of books. Children can then write a review, give their personal opinion, talk about their favourite character and give a star rating. Caint agus cómhrá Bí ag caint as Gaeilge chomh minic as is féidir! Try to incorporate Irish into daily activities. As well as cartoons on TG4, children can play games such as “I spy” (Feicim le mo shúilín) as Gaeilge and perhaps put labels (lipéid) on items around the house. There are some useful websites online to support the learning of Irish (mar shampla Duo Lingo agus Seomra Ranga). Cooking and baking (weight and time)
A “shape hunt” in the home / garden (shape and space strand in primary maths curriculum). Children identify and classify as many items as possible. Time (schedules) Children can look at a tv guide from a newspaper and work out duration of programmes. Distance Children can incorporate distance into football / hurling drills. How far do they think (estimate) they can throw a ball? Use a measuring tape to obtain an accurate answer. Project work Children can work on a longer-term project based on a theme of their choice. A scrap book is ideal, and children can cut and paste articles, pictures, diagrams and pieces of writing. Other children may prefer to use their IT skills and create a PowerPoint presentation. Interviewing Children can devise a list of questions for a member of their family / wider family circle. For example, with grandparents / aunties / uncles they could explore aspects of the past (school life / pastimes / festivals and traditions around Easter etc.). This can link nicely with the “Then and Now” strand of the History curriculum. If possible, where children can communicate with grandparents via phone / facetime / skype this is a good way of keeping contact during this period where circumstances dictate that they must not visit older relatives. Creative arts Most homes will have a “bits-and-bobs” box or a bosca somewhere with nets, buttons, lids, wrapping paper etc. Now is a good time to use those recyclables and create a piece of artwork. Children should be encouraged to be original, be creative – and don’t forget to take a picture! Outdoors / physical activity There are endless opportunities for physical activity. Even if children are playing on their own or in very small groups, there are many fun ways of keeping active:
Nature walks This is one for parents and children. It is so important to remember to get active and get outdoors to open spaces. Incorporate science, geography, oral language, drama and music into a walk whether it’s in a nearby park, along a beach or in the countryside. Back to basics – other enjoyable, but educational activities
Scoilnet.ie A very useful online forum with a wide array of resources (emphasis on free tools). Resources are organised into theme pages and the website is easy to navigate. Twinkl.ie Created by teachers, ideal for home education, it has lots of appealing games, stories, worksheets etc. It is offering a free month’s subscription (enter offer code: IRLTWINKLHELPS). Cúla4.com A collection of resources as Gaeilge – cláir, físeáin, cluichí, tomhais agus srl. Ask about Ireland A treasure trove of resources with an Irish interest, focusing on our national culture. Padlet.ie A collection of tools, apps, ideas and sites to support Irish Primary pupils working at home, compiled by Ciara Reilly primary-school teacher and lecturer in education with Marino Institute. MúinteoirLOI Another resource created by primary school teacher Tom O’Connor which is ideal for anyone who has a house full of League of Ireland fans this morning. Free themed lessons focused on Irish soccer clubs. Go Noodle Movement and mindfulness videos created by child development experts. Scratch Learn to programme interactive games, stories and animations. Khan Academy Non-profit site with provides free video tutorials in maths and reading. IXL.com Subscription-based learning experience that provides curriculum-aligned maths and English content from junior infants up to sixth year. National Geographic Kids Learn about science, geography and history. Nasa Kids’ Club Child-friendly resource where kids can learn about science and space. I am an Artist A visual arts initiative comprising 30 short TV programmes (each 6 minutes in length), an interactive website with slideshows, lessons, weblinks and interactive games, providing a stimulating collection of curriculum-mapped resources. Open up an account with mathletics and play for 5-10 mins daily. https://www.mathletics.com/uk/ To work on your addition subtraction multiplication and division facts check out wwww.fun4thebrain.com From Junior Infants upwards To help memorise Multiplication tables try some of the games on www.multiplication.com (3rd Class up) in addition to multiplcation ideas mentioned on a previous post www.topmarks.co.uk covers all aspects of the Maths curriculum from Junior Infants up-just select topic and age from drop down list With everybody grounded at home this is a good opportunity to work on the No 1 Maths skill that all children find challenging-TIME. STEPS IN LEARNING ABOUT TIME Start with the calendar-check the months of the year, days in each month, what date is it 1 day after/ 1 week after/ 1 day before/ 1 week before etc. If Thursday is the 10th of the month what date is the following Saturday etc Moving onto the clock-read the time in analogue starting off with o'clock and half past and then moving onto 5 minute intervals. Read the time in digital-noting that in digital we always start with the hour whereas in analogue we start with the minutes. Convert analogue to digital and vice versa Finally reading timetables and calculating how many hours and minutes for something to happen. Check out www.teachingtime.co.uk for some interactive clocks and www.superteacherworksheets for some free printables. There are also detail of telling the time apps on the teaching time website . Dear Parents, Hope you are all keeping well and coping with the trying circumstances we find ourselves in these days.
You may find it useful to be able to access some books online . Some of the publishers have given access to parents to their digital resources. For books published by Folens go to FolensOnline.ie. and follow the steps below to get access:
For books published by The Educational Company go to www.edcolearning.ie/login Level: Username: Password Primary primaryedcobooks edco2020 If other publishers open up their digital resources to us we will let you know here. A note was sent to each family today following the announcement by An Taoiseach re school closure.
Teachers sent home some suggestions to enable the children to continue working on some of the activities they had planned for the next fortnight. We would also like to offer the following information that may be useful to parents: The website Twinkl.ie is offering all parents a One Month FREE Ultimate Membership to Twinkl.ie. This will allow parents and teachers unlimited access to every single resource for every single curriculum subject from junior infants to sixth class. To set up go to www.twinkl.ie/offer and enter the code IRLTWINKLHELPS. Accessing this offer on Twinkl.ie will allow parents the opportunity to transform their home into a classroom by being able to access PowerPoints, games, songs, rhymes, stories, worksheets for every area of all subjects on the curriculum from junior infants to sixth class. The website www.topmarks.co.uk is very useful and used by the teachers for activities on iPads. Browse by subject and age group. All children from 1st -6th would really benefit from working on speed of recall for tables -addition and subtraction for 1st and 2nd, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division for 3rd - 6th. Hit the button on Topmarks website or the DK 10 minutes a day app should be helpful. For independent research and project work www.dkfindout.com and www. scoilnet.ie (browse topic ) will be very helpful. We hope that this will help somewhat and we appreciate that the weeks ahead hold challenges for us all. The most important thing is to keep safe and well and any updates will be posted here. In light of recent HSE advice re Conronavirus-COVID 19 we have decided to postpone our celebration of our Grandparents next Friday March 13th.
Apologies for any inconvenience. Hopefully we will be able to re-convene next term. |
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