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Review: STEM projects: Prim-Ed

Despite it not being mentioned in any of the curriculum subjects, STEM is everywhere! STEM stands for Science, technology, engineering and maths and it is a way that primary school teachers can integrate the subjects of science and maths using the skills of ed technology and engineering. I think teachers are interested in STEM and how it might look in the primary classroom. With this in mind, Prim-Ed have made a dinky, colourful box of STEM activities for all classes to use. I received an Infants’ box to review. Each box is made up of 4 different colour-coded sections. These are living Things; Energy and Forces; materials; and Earth and the Environment. We can see how SESE and the Ethical Education curriculum (taught in Educate Together schools) can be focussed on with these sections. The cards contain explanation on what STEM education...
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Filed Under Mash Reviews

What did you search for in October?

We hope you had a great first term. Every month we share our top search terms with you, which may help for inspiration if you are a seller. Here are October's: The top 5 searches for resources on Mash.ie this month were: Oiche Shamhna Halloween Bia New language curriculum Autumn The top two results are unsurprising. I guess this might be useful to any sellers for November to look out for special events that are coming up. Sellers might also be interested to note that again of the searches where there were no returns over 90% of them were store names. We're still working on allowing store names to be included in search results but in the meantime, it would be a very good idea for sellers to include their name and store name in the description of their products. The following terms were searched for with no results....
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Making Verbs Fun

This month, we are delighted to welcome Michelle Moriarty as our featured seller with a very interesting article on how to make learning verbs fun. You can find Michelle's store here! I don’t know about you, but after ten years of teaching Irish verbs there are days where I really wonder if I managed to teach anything at all! I teach in a DEIS 2 school in Dublin. When I started here Irish was not a priority but in the last few years we have really tried to focus in on improving our school-wide standard. One of the areas I have been focused on at the senior end has been the dreaded Briathra na Gaeilge. Once we have identified the rules there’s the inevitable worksheets and exercises in the textbook. Kids get bored of these very quickly. So, I tried to find other ways to practice conjugating verbs – what games do we play in other...
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TP’s, Dips and Tips!

Every month we give our blog over to one of our wonderful teacher sellers to give you some advice and tips for your classroom. Our October teacher is Kate Battle and she has very kindly written a piece giving some tips for new teachers. Please visit her store: KB's Classroom! Hi everyone, I’m Kate, and I’ve been a seller on Mash.ie for the past three years now (can’t believe it’s been that long myself) and I’m the girl behind ‘KB’s Classroom’! I’ve taught for over four years in a few different school types as both Class Teacher and SET Teacher. Although my products can be bought and used by any teacher, I believe my shop mainly caters for TP and Dip students as having gone through it all myself I felt I had an insight into what exactly helps students and NQTS and that for me was the idea of ready made lesson packs that...
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What did you search for in September?

September is the busiest month on Mash.ie and a crazy month in real life! The top 5 searches for resources on Mash.ie this month were: mé féin (71 results) New language curriculum (128 results) Aistear (332 results) bia (87 results) bua na cainte (27 results) Sellers might be interested to note that of the searches where there were no returns over 90% of them were store names. We're going to work on allowing store names to be included in search results but in the meantime, it would be a very good idea for sellers to include their name and store name in the description of their products. The following terms were searched for with no results. sound town Aistear Breithlá bia naíonán shinsearacha chestnut tree Christmas Plays...
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Review: The Maths Box: Early Years: Prim-Ed

I have been sent the Maths Box for Early Years to review. I am currently teaching Senior Infants and have had the last month to put the activities to use! First of all, let me explain the product for you. The Maths box is a colourful and robust box that contains 300 colourful cards to help support the teaching and learning of mathematical skills in the Infant Classes. It is not intended as an independent resource but more so teacher-led table or group. There are 4 copies of each of the 75 unique maths cards and I would be able to use a card per table if I had access to three other SET teachers. Therefore, this resource would be absolutely super for in-class support or a smaller withdrawal setting with the SET. Each card sets a challenge based on a maths curriculum objective. The photocopiable Teacher’s Guide that comes with it has a full...
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Filed Under Mash Reviews

Planning for the New Primary Language Curriculum Made Simple

Every month we give our blog over to one of our wonderful teacher sellers to give you some advice and tips for your classroom. Our September teacher is Top Teaching Resources and she has very kindly written a piece about making the New Primary Curriculum easier to understand. Please visit her store: Top Teaching Resources! I am currently teaching First Class and have used the new Primary Language Curriculum (PLC) for teaching and planning for the past year. It seemed very daunting at first, but once I got my head around the terminology in the new curriculum, it became no more challenging than planning for the 1999 curriculum. This is a very simple explanation of the PLC that I used to understand the terminology and to transition from the 1999 curriculum in my planning and teaching: Elements are listed instead of Strand Units. ...
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Tips to Save you Time from All Things Primary

Every month we give our blog over to one of our wonderful teacher sellers to give you some advice and tips for your classroom. Our first teacher is our top seller, who recently had a name-change. Infant Teaching Ideas is now called All Things Primary and she has very kindly supplied us with some tips to save teachers time. Please visit All Things Primary at her store! Do you find that you are forever making, printing, photocopying and laminating resources? Are you always on the lookout for new resources or trying to find that really good book/toy/resource you had last year? Well, you are not alone!  Here are my top 3 tips which might make life a bit easier for you!   Stick and double laminate! There is nothing worse than carefully cutting all your laminating and placing all the bits so precisely in order to fit as much...
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When do you start planning?

Most people think that teachers get the whole summer off, and while we do get a nice break, it's not as long as they might think, with up to 3 weeks taken up by completing summer courses and then there's planning for the new year. Most teachers like to take a short break after the madness of June. However, when do you start your planning and paperwork for the new school year? Check out our Facebook poll here.
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What did you search for in June?

June is traditionally a quieter month on Mash.ie and a crazy month in real life! However, teachers were still searching for resources and it wasn't much of a surprise that the biggest item typed in the search bar was "end of year" It's also interesting to see people using the search bar to find particular stores they like. This only works if your product description contains your store name so it might be worth taking note. For example 74 people searched for Miss Múinteoir in June. The top 5 searches for resources were: end of year junior infants new language curriculum aistear tricky words People searched for other items but got no return on their search. It might be worth creating resources to help these people! you blew me away holes end of year certificates sports day certificates Tomás na...
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Filed Under Mash News, Searches
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