On 30th April and 1st May, the coordinator visited all the participating schools and distributed hundreds of flyers and organisational information to each school. We asked school principals to give  each child a flyer to bring home with them. This will help publicise The Children’s Learning Festival and bring it to the attention of each family, especially where the child is presenting the school project entry. Non-exhibiting schools in County Meath will receive a flyer in the post as well as a copy of the printed programme when it becomes available. We will put flyers in the library and other public places around the town. We are now working on the final content of our Programme booklet. It will detail the times of the free drawing classes and Scratch demonstrations. We also have some non-school exhibitors and we may yet have other surprise attractions. We expect that it will be quite an entertaining and enjoyable event for all the family.

We have been asked if we are supplying any leaflet to schools for parents/children to promote the event or is it up to each individual school to make the school community aware of it.

The answer is, Yes. We have 100s of full colour flyers available with lots of info for each school to give to the children to bring home. These are now being distributed. The main message on the flyer is: Come See Our Kids Present Their Project. Each individual school is also at liberty to promote the event in its own way and make the school community aware of it.  Extra flyers can be collected in Navan Education Centre from Thursday 2nd May.We will mention the extra attractions of the CoderDojo Kids demos, the Irish Wildlife Trust display and drawing lessons, Meath County Library and the other promotional stands joining us at the festival. It promises to be a super occasion.

In this final phase of our preparation, the lead-in to the Féile, we especially welcome feedback and questions from participating schools and any suggestions or amendments they have. We’d very much like the schools to make The Children’s Learning Festival their event.

We will keep everyone up to date with our blog. See you again soon!

CoderDojo Navan kids seen here last weekend in Slane Castle with James Whelton and Bill Liao co-founders of CoderDojo. The kids in Navan CoderDojo will demonstrate their coding skills during the day at the Children’s Learning Festival. Some astonishing achievements to see in Scratch and App Inventor. Talk with the kids about their projects and look out for TJ’s Farm Frenzy Game at FÉILE LÉINN na nÓG!

The Irish Wildlife Trust will set up a very attractive display at FÉILE LÉINN na nÓG. This will bring an extra learning dimension for the children attending the festival. IWT will run free Animal Drawing Classes and stage Wildlife Guessing Games using animal bones, skulls and antlers. They also intend to bring along a tank of Irish Smooth Newts! They have free posters, wildlife magazines and lots more.  There will be two drawing classes; the first will take place from 11am to 12 noon and the second from 3 to 4pm! Don’t miss the IWT games and display attraction and book a drawing class on the day. See you there.