DruidGregory Educational Resources for Primary Schools Information Pack for Teachers DRUID | DRUIDGREGORY | EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES FOR PRIMARY SCHOOLS PAGE 2 Contents PAGE 3 Introduction PAGE 3 Resources PAGE 4 Get Involved: video to celebrate young Galway writers PAGE 4 Guidelines for submitting students’ responses PAGE 5 Activity Sheets Information PAGE 10 Further engagement PAGE 11 Extracts from Me & Nu PAGE 20 About Lady Gregory PAGE 21 About Druid PAGE 22 About DruidGregory PAGE 24 About Galway 2020 PAGE 25 Contact Us DRUID | DRUIDGREGORY | EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES FOR PRIMARY SCHOOLS PAGE 3 Introduction Resources As part of DruidGregory, a Galway The DruidGregory resources include an educational video about Lady Gregory and Lady 2020 commission, Druid has created Gregory Activity Sheets. free educational resources about the The aim of these resources is to inspire Galway Galway writer, Lady Gregory. These children to fall in love with stories and to follow resources are now available to every Lady Gregory’s example and get writing. primary school in Galway. We want young Galway readers and writers to think: ‘Lady Gregory grew up in Galway, just like me. I too could become a great writer, just like her!’ Lady Gregory was a Galway writer who celebrated the people of Galway. The educational video has been made especially for Galway primary schools. The video takes We hope to introduce primary school students on a journey around Lady Gregory’s children to Lady Gregory and, through home in Galway, Coole Park, and introduces them to who Lady Gregory was and what she achieved. her example, to inspire the children of The video also introduces the themes explored in Galway to get reading and writing. the Activity Sheets. The Lady Gregory Activity Sheets are divided by All these resources are available at class groupings, but you are welcome to pick and choose which activities would be most appropriate www.druid.ie/get-involved/education for your students. With the recent interruptions to children’s learning, you will be able to select the best fit for the children in your class. There are two activities associated with each level: • A Puzzle Activity that provides the opportunity to familiarise students with aspects of Lady Gregory’s life and work, for example: colouring-in, wordsearch and crossword. • A Creative Activity that encourages students to be inspired by Lady Gregory and to get creative themselves. Every student will also receive a special colour-in bookmark. We will be posting these bookmarks to every primary school in Galway city and county in October. The aim of the bookmark is to celebrate Lady Gregory, and to encourage children to get reading. DRUID | DRUIDGREGORY | EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES FOR PRIMARY SCHOOLS PAGE 4 Get Involved Video to celebrate young Galway Guidelines for submitting students’ writers responses To encourage primary students to get reading and We invite you to send us your students’ responses writing, and to celebrate the creativity of Galway to the Creative Activities (i.e. Your Favourite school children, we are inviting each school in Reading Spot, Your Ideal Writing Spot, Collect a Galway city and county to post us their students’ Story or Write Your Own Story). responses to the Creative Activities. Here’s how: We will select a number of these student responses from schools throughout Galway to be read to 1. Choose which Creative Activity would work camera by our DruidGregory actors in a special best for your class (it doesn’t have to be the video that will be created in October to celebrate one specific to their age range – you know your the creative writing and creative potential of the students best). children of Galway. 2. Once the activities are complete, we ask For children to have their writing read by that you, the teacher, fill in the information professional actors is a wonderful endorsement box at the bottom of your students’ work to of their creative abilities and the power of their ensure that it is fully legible. If one of your voices. Hopefully, it will inspire the next generation students is selected, this information may of Galway literary giants! be shared on the video (i.e. student’s first name, age, and the school address). If there We hope your school will be happy to engage is any safeguarding concern with sharing in this opportunity as we celebrate the next this information, please only include the generation of Galway storytellers. information that you are happy for us to share. The deadline for posting us these responses is 3. Please gather the responses from your class or Friday 9th October. school together in one envelope. 4. Fill out the Posting Activity Sheets: School Details Form and include this in the envelope with your students’ work. 5. Please post to: Education Assistant, Druid Theatre Company, Flood Street, Galway. If you would like us to return your students’ work, please include an addressed envelope. The deadline for posting us these responses is Friday 9th October. DRUID | DRUIDGREGORY | EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES FOR PRIMARY SCHOOLS PAGE 5 Activity Sheets Information We recommend showing your students the video about Lady Gregory before they complete these activities. This will provide a context for their work. Breakdown of the activities Junior & Senior Infants: Puzzle Activity: Colour in Lady Gregory’s house Creative Activity: Identify and draw your favourite reading spot 1st & 2nd Class: Puzzle Activity: Maze activity (Lady Gregory’s writing paper blew off in the wind, help her to find it!) Creative Activity: Identify and draw your ideal writing spot 3rd & 4th Class: Puzzle Activity: Lady Gregory Wordsearch Creative Activity: Collect a story – talk to an older person that you know and write down a story from their childhood 5th & 6th Class: Puzzle Activity: Lady Gregory Crossword Creative Activity: Choose a title of one of Lady Gregory’s plays and write your own story inspired by that title DRUID | DRUIDGREGORY | EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES FOR PRIMARY SCHOOLS PAGE 6 Junior & Senior Infants: Puzzle Activity: Colour in Lady Creative Activity: Your Favourite Gregory’s house Reading Spot! Coole House is no longer standing. It was This is the Creative Activity for this age group. demolished after Lady Gregory’s death. However, We invite you to post us your students’ responses if you visit Coole Park you will see that the raised to this activity. A selection of students’ responses footprint of the house is still there, so it’s possible will be chosen to be shared by the DruidGregory to stand on the exact spot where the house used to actors in our video celebration of the children of be. Galway. There are photos of the house (included in the Becoming a great writer usually starts with video), so we know what it once looked like. becoming a great reader. This activity is designed However, these photos are in black and white so to get your students thinking and talking about the they don’t show what colour the house once was. enjoyment of reading. At a young age, the most Therefore, your students are free to use their enjoyable aspect of reading is often the context imaginations to decide what colour (or colours!) in which you read. For example, the experience the house should be. of sharing books with a parent at night-time or sitting on a grandparent’s lap makes the book even more special. Perhaps some children most enjoy reading books independently - maybe tucked up in bed, or sitting under a tree, or at the beach. Talking about and celebrating our favourite reading spots might help some children to see reading books as something fun, exciting and special. By sharing their favourite spots, they will hopefully inspire one another and foster a new appreciation for reading. Lady Gregory loved stories and reading books. She loved to read beside the fireplace, surrounded by the books in her library at Coole Park. Suggestion: reading Extract 1 from Me & Nu (page 11 in this pack) would be a great accompaniment to this activity. In this extract, Lady Gregory is reading to Anne and Nu beside the fireplace in the library at Coole Park. DRUID | DRUIDGREGORY | EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES FOR PRIMARY SCHOOLS PAGE 7 1st & 2nd Class: Puzzle Activity: Maze – ‘Help Lady woods. Other writers went to the lake to get ideas Gregory Find Her Missing Page!’ for new stories. Some writers were most inspired when they were enjoying the beautiful flowers in the gardens. This activity is designed to familiarise your students with some of the features of Coole Park. This activity is an opportunity for discussion with Coole Park was a writer’s retreat - a place where your students about what places might help them writers would go to find inspiration and to find a to write their stories. Is there somewhere special nice place to write. Coole Lake and the Nut Wood that inspires them (gives them lost of ideas)? were some of the places where writers found Perhaps this is somewhere quiet: a quiet walk in most inspiration. The writers who came to Coole the woods might inspire a story about a tiny fairy Park were invited to carve their initials into the who lives under the leaves on the forest floor. Autograph Tree in the Walled Garden. Perhaps they would prefer somewhere noisy, with lots of people around: clambering on a climbing Suggestion: reading Extracts 2 and 3 from Me frame in a playground might inspire a story about & Nu (pages 13 and 16 in this pack) would be a pirate climbing up to the lookout spot on a pirate a great accompaniment to this activity. These ship. Or maybe they get their inspiration closer extracts describe some of the writers in Coole to home.