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N.Ireland's curriculum is solely student centered. Being from the states, N. Irelands curriculum is every educators dream. There is so much room to make your own decision on what you would like to teach (which is what I hope to experience as a professional). Belfast provides "Themes" and the teachers have the opportunity to choose what they would like to teach their students based on the specific theme.
For example: Fairy Tales was the theme that we focused on today.
The Arts: Teachers can use the arts to their advantage by creating houses from the story of the Three Little Pigs.
Personal Development & Mutual Understanding: Teachers can either read or have the students read the book Hansel and Gretel and connect the theme to "taking care and being safe".
Programming and Coding (Mathematics and Numeracy): Teachers will incorporate ITC (technology) and play games etc. to work on directions, shapes, dimensions etc. *We practiced programming and coding during this workshop*
The World Around Us (Geography, Social Studies and Science): Types of houses around the world.
Language and Literacy: Teachers would have students create a story map.
PROGRAMMING & CODING ACTIVITY:
We were given a story about Hansel and Gretel. The story told us that Hansel was terrible with directions, and he had somehow got lost in the woods, and it was Gretel's job to go find him. We used a "BeeBot" and a grid (as shown below) to "find" Hansel. We used the "Beebot" and the directions provided for us (which were not in order), figure out the order in which the directions would help us "find" Hansel.
This was an absolutely fantastic way to allow your students to collaboratively work together, practice their mathematics skills, coding abilities, sequence of commands, as well as practice their ability to recognize directions! I would highly recommend purchasing a "BeeBot" for your own classroom!