Puppet Workshop – creating characters with stories
This lesson is created by Sinead Cunningham who is an Arts facilitator.
As a practising Artist she creates an abundance of crafts, paintings and also makes music.
Her Art is ever evolving so to find out more follow her Facebook Page
I really like this lesson because it appeals to both practical students and kinaesthetic ones - you make a puppet to tell a story and write around the making - a great way to get over the blank page but also there is a personal character for the puppet, a way to have real emotions in a physical way beyond the 2-D story! Dr. Naoisé
Our experience being brought to others outside of The Homework Club
A short clip of some of our very valuable findings at The Homework Club
Innovative lesson for an Abacus
This blog piece is written by Rachel Sneyd. Rachel is currently completing an undergraduate degree in History and Politics at Trinity College Dublin. She is a keen writer and has just submitted her first teen-fiction novel for publication.
I set the team a task of thinking of an innovative lesson or use of a new toy, abacus - especially not for maths!
Rachel was thinking about using it for younger kids as a way of measuring progress/encouraging them to push themselves. If a student is having particular trouble writing, you could use it to build up the number of sentences/words they'll write and if they're having trouble reading you could use it to get them to read more paragraphs/pages/poems and so on!
So all the beads would be on the left hand side on the first day. You'd get them to read or write as much as they're willing to. Then you would move one bead from the top row to the right hand side for every sentence written/poem read etc.
The next day you would reset the abacus to show how they got on the week before and then challenge them to do better, so maybe this time you will move three beads over instead of two. As the weeks go on they will be able to clearly see that they are improving and hopefully they will be motivated to beat their own scores!
Brilliant - Just the sort of idea I was looking for!
Benefits of Poetry For Kids
This blog piece is written by Rachel Sneyd. Rachel is currently completing an undergraduate degree in History and Politics at Trinity College Dublin. She is a keen writer and has just submitted her first teen-fiction novel for publication.
For many young students the idea of reading an entire book is terrifying. Even the idea of starting a book can be scary. Poetry can be a great tool to get these students started.
They can see the entire poem on the page and know that they can handle it. Good children's poetry is engaging, fun and accessible and so they can genuinely enjoy reading it. They can read the entire poem and get the satisfaction and confidence that comes with finishing something.
Shel Silverstein's work is a fantastic example. His poems are hilarious and bizarre and he can tell a story in just a few short lines. The poems have titles like "Sister for Sale" and "Prayer of the Selfish Child" and come with wonderful illustrations. He uses simple language and has a wicked sense of humour that gets students laughing out loud and begging to read "one more."
The Value of Going Back to Basics
This blog piece is written by Rachel Sneyd. Rachel is currently completing an undergraduate degree in History and Politics at Trinity College Dublin. She is a keen writer and has just submitted her first teen-fiction novel for publication.
The Value of Going Back to Basics
It might seem counterintuitive, but sometimes in order to help a student move forwards you have to go backwards.
The roots of seemingly big problems are often found in basic gaps in knowledge that occurred months or even years before. For whatever reason a student doesn’t fully master a piece of information or skill. They can’t keep up with subsequent work that relies on them having this knowledge and they fall further and further behind. Their confidence is eroded and they are too embarrassed to ask for help with something they should already know. A simple gap, like not having fully grasped factorising in fifth class, becomes a big problem, like not being able to do Leaving Cert algebra.
Identifying these gaps and taking the time to fill them in, even if this means going backwards in the curriculum, can allow the student to finally catch up with their classmates.
There is also value in going back to a level of work that the student finds more manageable. They finally get a chance to be good at the subject and their confidence is built up. A third year student who thinks they are bad at English can excel at first year year level comprehensions. They can gradually be moved up to second and then third year work, often without realising that the work is getting harder. They have the confidence to attempt work they would have thought was impossible and even more importantly they expect to do it well because they have gotten used to succeeding.
