Have you started thinking about celebrating St. Patrick's Day?
Dear NQT,
St. Patrick’s Day, which ends Seachtain na Gaeilge, is a fantastic chance to celebrate everything there is to love about Ireland and the Irish culture. I have put together some ideas for celebrating St. Patrick’s Day in your class and school this year that requires little to no preparation.
Have a Lá Glas
Get everyone in your class and school to dress in green or to wear something green!
Attend a virtual St. Patrick’s Day Parade
Rewatch St. Patrick’s Day parades like the one in Dublin in 2019 and all over the world in New York and Australia.
Another amazing thing for the children to do is watch a parade like this one from 1939 and discuss how the celebration has changed over time.
Songs or Rhymes as Gaeilge
This fantastic website “Songs in Irish” has over 600 Irish language songs with lyrics included. In most cases they also include the YouTube video link and also guitar chords.
I also love An Haka Gaelach, check it out below!
TG Lurgan has lots of modern pop songs in Irish! I love playing these in class as the children work. Amhrán na gCupán is a really fun song to learn and the pupils love using the cups!
Get your dancing shoes on!
Learn and perform some ceilí dances or fun irish dances such as:
An Dreoilín
The Walls of Limerick
This can still be done outdoors, socially distanced with a little tweaking and no holding hands!
Or why not show the pupils how Irish dancing has modernised with pop music, and how it has become a TikTok trend!
Try to Trap a Leprechaun!
I saw this amazing idea on ashleymurphyfamily on Instagram and thought it was such a fun idea to do with the younger pupils! These two books could be played as YouTube read-alouds, and then after planning their trap, they could get to work using recyclable materials, glitter, paint and lots of colour!
Have an Outdoor Scavenger Hunt as Gaeilge!
One way I like to have fun leading up to St. Patrick’s Day is to compose a sentence as Gaeilge, cut it up and hide the sentence in different places on the yard. Under a bin, under a flower pot, on a wall, on a window, anywhere! The pupils must go around the area, find the words that are hidden and record each word. The group have to follow all the clues as Gaeilge, written or aural, and put the sentence together in the correct structure to win the scavenger hunt!
You could also do a scavenger hunt for younger pupils by hiding pictures with numbers around the yard and the pupils must try to match a word with a number to the correct picture with another number.
Scavenger hunts are so broad and you can have so much fun coming up with something fun and exciting for the pupils!
Comórtas Seanfhocal
This is a fun activity to get the pupils to do and is really interesting to see the different interpretations! Give each pupil a different seanfhocal and have them draw a picture to match it!
Gaelic Athletics Association
Teach the pupils the history of the GAA in Ireland and engage in some of our Gaelic sports.
I hope this has given you some ideas for celebrating St. Patrick’s Day in your classroom or school this year!
Labhróidh mé libh go luath!
Nadine
P.S. Check out our upcoming CPD Conference for Teachers!
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