Parents, here are some website links that may support you and your child during this time of school closure due to Covid-19. We hope they are of some use to you during this time. If you have any other suggestions of websites that you have used with your children, please let us know by emailing principal@craggaghns.ie

 

Literacy

Folens are offering free access to over 330 Collins Big Cat ebooks and printable worksheets for teachers and parents. These books are graded readers similar to the Oxford Reading Tree graded readers we use in school. There are a large range of fiction and non-fiction ebooks available. To access these, visit

https://connect.collins.co.uk/school/portal.aspx

Click Teacher Login

Enter username: parents@harpercollins.co.uk

Password: Parents20!

 

Oliver Jeffers, children’s author is reading a book every evening at 6pm on his instagram account. He then adds the videos to his website. They are available at the following link:

https://www.oliverjeffers.com/books#/abookaday/ 

 

www.storylineonline.net is a storytelling website where picture books are read aloud by actors.

 

www.storytimefromspace.com is another storytelling website where astronauts read stories from the international space station!

 

https://stories.audible.com/start-listen is an audio book streaming service run by amazon. They have made all audio books free during this time of school closures.

 

David Walliams is reading a book a day at 11am during the time of school closures on his website. www.worldofdavidwalliams.com/elevenses 

 

To improve your child’s reading comprehension. https://readtheory.org/

 

Gaeilge

www.focloir.ie is an online Irish dictionary.

 

TG4 have a range of children’s shows ‘as Gaeilge’ available on their website also. This is a great way of immersing children in the Irish language. They may not understand every word but they will understand the general meaning.

https://www.cula4.com/en/shows/  

 

https://www.seideansi.ie/ is a website with many Irish vocabulary games that children will love from Junior Infants up to 6th class. 

 

https://www.duolingo.com/ is a language learning website. You can study a wide range of languages including Irish. It can be accessed through the website or an app.

 

Maths

https://www.themathsfactor.com/ gives pupils free access to Carol Voderman maths website.

 

https://www.worksheetworks.com/ If you would like to print tables or specific maths that you would like your child to work on.

 

https://www.mangahigh.com/en-gb/ Game based learning in maths for 6-16 year olds. Free access at this time.

 

Practice your multiplication tables here. http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/mathgames/fruitshoot/fruitshoot_multiplication.htm 

 

SESE

https://www.worldbookonline.com/kids/home is a website that the children will be very familiar with. It is an online children’s encyclopedia that we use regularly in school for research on a particular topic.

 

http://www.askaboutireland.ie/learning-zone/ is a fantastic website with lots of information on Irish history and geography. This will be very useful to your child when completing project work.

 

PE

The Body Coach – Joe Wicks – is teaching a PE lesson every morning on his YouTube channel at 9am. These videos are saved and can be viewed at any time. You can follow along here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rz0go1pTda8 

 

www.gonoodle.com is a fantastic website to get children moving. There are lots of videos with dances, movement breaks and other physical activities.

 

https://rtejr.rte.ie/10at10/ is another website with 10 minute movement activities for children.

 

https://www.cosmickids.com/category/watch/ has some fabulous yoga videos for children done through storytelling. There is a great yoga session video which tells the story of The Twits by Roald Dahl.

 

Publisher Online Resources

 

The main publishers have also made their online resources available to all parents for the duration of the school closures. Most of the books we use in school are by Folens and the online activities can be accessed through folensonline.ie.   

1. Go to www.folensonline.ie and click register
2. Select Teacher
3. Fill in a username, email and password
4. For roll number use the code: Prim20

 

Resources

Twinkl is a website that offers thousands of resources for primary school children. Here you will find a wide range of worksheets and activities based on a variety of themes.

Go to www.twinkl.ie/offer and enter the code IRLTWINKLHELPS to gain free access to this website during this crisis.

 

Scholastic has created a free learn-from-home site with 20+ days of learning and activities.

https://classroommagazines.scholastic.com/support/learnathome.html  

 

www.scoilnet.ie is a website that offers a wide range of educational resources – from web links to videos and other resources. 

https://www.worldbookonline.com/kids/home is an online encyclopedia for kids. We use this in school to research topics for SESE. There are lots of interesting articles on this website.

 

As we approach Easter and Holy Week, Scoilnet have a range of videos and resources around the theme of Lent and Easter.  These resources can be found here:

https://www.scoilnet.ie/primary/theme-pages/events/holy-week/  

 

To help teachers, students and parents during this difficult time we are granting free access to our Grow In Love AND Soul seekers online series. Simply login on the website https://www.growinlove.ie/en/  with the following details:

Email: trial@growinlove.ie

Password: growinlove

 

PrimEd have also made at home learning packs available for parents to download. They are done by class level, so you can download the worksheets that are relevant to you.

https://www.prim-ed.ie/blog/post/parent-information-centre/

 

Just for fun!

Keep an eye on the animals in Dublin Zoo with their live webcams.

https://www.dublinzoo.ie/animals/animal-webcams/

 

We gathered together this morning for World Book Day to “share a story” with one another. The children all brought their favourite books to school and we spent the morning sharing them with their friends. Check out some of our favourite books below!

Once again we had a full house for our annual Christmas concert last Monday night. A huge thank you to all who attended and supported our fundraiser. Well done to all of the children and their teachers. The performances can be found on the links below. They certainly are worth a watch!

Junior Room Play:

Senior Room Play:

Grúpa Ceoil Christmas Tunes:

A celebration mass was held in Craggagh Community Centre in honour of Mrs Macken’s retirement on Friday 4th October. It was a full house on the night. Pupils, past and present, parents and members of the Craggagh community all gathered together to celebrate with Aingeal.

Fr Michael, Fr Pat and Fr Paddy led us in saying mass on the night. The school choir accompanied by Mrs Clarke played some of Mrs Macken’s favourite hymns and tunes. Mrs Macken even joined in with the choir! The children prayed for Mrs Macken and brought forward some symbols of her teaching career.

After mass, Mrs Macken spoke very fondly of her years in Craggagh and the wonderful relationship that she had with the children, parents and the community. She thanked the Boards of Management, Parent’s Associations and Staff that she had worked with over the years in Craggagh NS.

After mass the celebrations continued with a cup of tea and a chat. A group of Mrs Macken’s past pupils came together to play a selection of tunes that Mrs Macken had taught them over the years.

A huge thank you to all who attended and took part on the night. Your presence was greatly appreciated by Aingeal and her family. We were delighted to be able to give her the send off she deserves! A special thank you to the Parent’s Association who organised parking, set up the hall for mass and served tea, coffee and refreshments on the night. Thanks also to Seán Dwyer for these fabulous photographs.

 

 

We had a fantastic night at our Christmas Concert on Wednesday night. The children performed to our biggest audience yet! A huge thank you to all who supported the children on the night.

Thanks again to Seán Dwyer for filming all of the performances on the night. You can find a link to each video below.

Junior Room ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’

Middle Room ‘A Midwife Crisis’

Senior Room ‘Bethlehem – The Musical’

Our Parent Association are holding their annual Easter Bake Sale on April 1st, Easter Sunday. The Bake Sale will take place in the school after 9:30am Mass.

Members of the PA will be available to collect baking from 6pm to 6:30pm on Saturday evening, or before Mass on Sunday morning.

All proceeds raised by the PA are raised in aid of Craggagh National School.

Thank you for your help as always!

As part of the St Patrick’s Day Festivities in Kiltimagh, we participated in a lovely evening of poetry and song with our friends from St Aidan’s NS.

The event was hosted and facilitated by local poet, Terry McDonnagh.

In the weeks leading up to this evening, Terry visited the school a number of times and conducted poetry workshops. Using the theme “Journeys” the children explored the life of Raifteirí through poem and song.

The children composed their own works, some of which were performed on the evening.

Thanks to Terry, Poetry Ireland and the Tourism Association in Kiltimagh.

You can find out more about Terry’s work here.

(Thanks to Mags Hession for the video)

 

Anthony Broderick, author of The Adventures Jack and Adam series of children books, visited us this week to talk about his work as an author and as an entrepreneur.

So far, Anthony has published 3 books in the Jack and Adam series.

Anthony spoke at length about the writing process, what inspires him and what drives him. He had lots of great tips for the children to help them with their own story writing.

Anthony also spoke about the business side of writing. There’s a lot of work behind the scenes, dealing with publishers, retailers and customers. This part of Anthony’s visit was especially interesting for us as we embark on our Junior Entrepreneur Project.

You can find out more about The Adventures of Jack and Adam here.

Junior Entrepreneur Workshop

We have embarked on another Junior Entrepreneur Adventure!

Our company is still in its infancy, and is as yet unnamed. However we had a very productive workshop last week with “Heritage Expert” Mark Wilson. We began production of our recycled copper key-rings and wooden key-ring holders.

 

We had a very busy assembly line with children hammering, filing, cleaning, and shaping our products.

We are absolutely delighted with our finished product. They will go on sale after the Easter holidays, with pricing yet to be determined!

 

Have a look at the pictures and videos below.

 

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