Saint Brigid’s National School, is a primary school situated in the centre of Greystones, Co. Wicklow. Our mission is to provide the highest quality education for all our children in a happy, safe and stimulating Christian environment, focusing on their academic, social, personal, moral and spiritual development to help them be the best they can be.

Resources on the school website

Here are some resources to supplement your child’s learning from infants to older classes.

Junior Classes: Infants to 1st approximately :

‘Teach Your Monster To Read’, Part 1 Part 2 & Part 3

is an opportunity to learn and revise phonics and the computer version is free. It has proved very popular with the children that use it here.

ABCya is another good website. It teaches Maths, Reading and more. Again it is child friendly and appealing.

Older Classes

Online activities for learning and revising tables. This is more fun than it sounds given the wide selection of online activities on the webmix.

In particular Multiplication Mine Junior from ABCya teaches multiplication as ‘repeated’ addition.

A timed, more challenging, follow on version of this game can be found here

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Many children from 3rd class up have a Readtheory.org https://readtheory.org/auth/login account that they can work on. Some children in the middle and senior classes have Khan Academy  https://www.khanacademy.org/  accounts for Maths. Great work has been done on these to date.

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On the website menu, there is a drop down menu under the tab that says ‘Resources’.

During last year’s ‘lockdown’ we referred parents to the first two ‘Senior Webmix’ and ‘Junior Webmix’ while children were learning from home. But there are lots of other webmixes on this site to choose from.

Parents made use of the ‘Links to Learn Tables’ mentioned above. We also recommended the resources on ‘Foghlaim na Gaeilge’.

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Teachers find ‘integration’ a very useful concept in school. It is acknowledged that the curriculum is overcrowded. It is hard to find time to cover everything. Integration, for example, encourages us to teach language while also teaching Art, Music, History, Geography etc.

The History and Geography webmix on this list is interesting. Working on it involves integration with language: reading, comprehension and developing vocabulary.

The Arts are important too, and there is an interesting Music webmix. While working on this webmix children are also developing their computer skills and seeing another way in which technology can be used.

There is also a Fine Motor Skills and Typing webmix. Some students used last term to learn to type. Touch typing is a valuable skill to have. It also helps children with their spellings through ‘muscle memory.
-Of the activities on the webmix Typing.com is recommended for children 3rd to 6th.
–Dance Mat Typing can be used by children from 2nd class approximately.
However the other activities on the webmix provide variety, give children a chance to practice their keyboard skills and to have fun.

In St.Brigid’s NS, Greystones we aim to educate the ‘whole child’. The activities on these links appeal to children with differing interests. They also develop different aspects of the child.

These are all useful for supplementing your child’s learning.

HELPING YOUR CHILD WITH IRISH:

1. NEW Rang Maher is a new and helpful website suitable for 4th – 6th class. It is particularly helpful for teaching Irish Grammar with videos to learn from, practical activities and useful summaries.

2. Click on THIS link for a book that encourages introducing Irish at home, as your child starts school. Recommended by Mr. Dodd, ‘Introduce Irish into your home’ is a simple story book and dictionary.

3. You may have heard about Duolingo. It is a great resource for learning Irish – for both children (from 3rd Class up approximately) and parents ! Set up an account and get your child to take the placement test. This ensures they are set up at the correct level of Irish for them to practice. Just 10 minutes a day and they can learn lots. We get good feedback about Duolingo from parents and students.

4. Mr. Dodd provided us with link to the Cúla 4 Ar Scoil YouTube Channel, where the videos are in shorter snippets and organised according to topics. This may be more manageable for you and your child.

Cúla4 also has cartoons and children’s programmes as Gaeilge on the following LINK: Again watching these help children get the language ‘on their ear’ and to see Irish as a living language.

HERE is a link to Irish Language Programming for children on TG4. Apps can be downloaded onto phones from TG 4 – e.g. Cúla Caint or Seinnteoir TG 4 (TG 4 Player)

5. On the school website, there is a Symbaloo Webmix with links for learning Irish. The very first link ‘Word Games – Digital Dialects’ is good for vocabulary development as are Cluiche 1 & 2 from the top line of the webmix.

6. Mr. Dodd suggested we include the following website which is good for reading, pronunciation and understanding.LEIGH ANOIS

7. He also let us know about this online Irish dictionary which has the facility to pronounce the different words you look up. Here is another online Irish dictionary.

8. Also recommended is the You Tube channel  Scéal an Lae (Story of the Day) where good quality Irish picture books are read aloud. They are five to ten minutes long and would would be suitable for Infants to Fourth Class approximately.

9.‘Muzzy’ Episodes 1 – 6 on YouTube ‘Muzzy’ is an award-winning language course for learners of all ages, developed by the BBC. It is subtitled in English.

10.Reading, writing, listening and writing exercises are to be found on Séideán Sí for each class level. If your child finds the exercises for their class level too hard, try an easier one.

11.There are stories on Soundcloud: Scéalta by Foras na Gaeilge

12.Here are a number of publications of Irish Songs and Rhymes here, here, here and here.

You can purchase Irish language games here.

Adults might like to improve their Irish further using the following:

Scroll down this link for Phrases of the Day and Adult Irish Language Courses (All Levels) with Gaelchultúr and there are many other useful resources for Gaelchultúr here.

Learning about Irish placenames is also interesting. You can do so here.

Thank you Mr. Dodd for all those recommendations.

Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam

Neart rudaí deasa don Nollaig anseo in aon áit amháin.

Rainn agus amhráin anseo

agus scannáin Gaeilge um Nollaig ar TG4 anseo

Rabhlóga anseo tongue twisters as Gaeilge. Píosa spraoi!