Getting to know Ireland…
With St. Patrick’s Day upon us, it’s a great time to learn the geography of Ireland. Any time of year is a great time to improve geography skills, actually, and you can use these ideas with other places, too, but I’ve got some great links for your Ireland study. Here are three excellent ways to learn more about Irish geography.
Get Visual
- The picture at the top of this post shows a souvenir tea towel from Ireland, the kind of thing tourists buy as a reminder of their trip. It’s an illuminated map: a map with little pictures and information on it. Make one for your class, with everyone adding on, or have students make their own. The example has historical information and poetry as well as place information. Use Google Earth, Google Maps, big paper on the wall, or inexpensive dish towels and fabric markers.
- A Pinterest board of Ireland is a simple tech project that can be used for lots of studies. How about a classroom board of Irish food, Irish art, Irish poetry, or Irish music connected with places in Ireland?
Google Earth for Ireland
Explore Irish geography and practice tech skills at the same time.
A tour of Irish heritage sites:
- Google map of Ireland
- KML file of County Mayo with lots of information
- St.Patrick’s Day Tour with Google Earth
- A map of Dublin
Dublin in 3-D (nice soundtrack):
Games
After you’ve immersed your class in Irish maps, play games to test your knowledge.
- Irish geography trivia questions include answers, and they’re perfect for open map play (students compete to see who can find the answer first) or advanced map memory competition.
- Online Irish counties game for your computer center or smart board.
- An online puzzle lets players create a map of Ireland.
- An interactive game to test your knowledge of the counties of Ireland.
- Make your own games. Sort students into teams and have each one create a game of Irish geography with cards or a game board. Set up all the completed games in different areas of the room and have groups go around the stations playing all the games. Serve ginger ale and Irish soda bread, play Irish music, and make a party of it.
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