Cover Gallery

Visual Arts: looking and responding

With our Cover Gallery children can examine some different interpretations of the same theme: with covers and designs from around the world, and both old and new covers for well-loved books, our Cover Gallery offers new and exciting possibilities for creative visual arts, cultural diversity and language development.

Art is a natural and enjoyable way of extending and enriching the child's experience of the world. Visual arts activities enable the child to make connections between the imaginative life and the world and to organise and express ideas, feelings and experiences in visual, tangible form. Creative achievements in art contribute to a sense of personal identity and self-esteem and help to create cultural awareness and empathy.

Discovery Challenge

Some children come to reading fluency later than others. Pandas and Flyers have proved successful, both in motivating children to read and in teaching literacy skills, particularly to children in the Senior end of Primary school. They are useful for children of all ages in receipt of Resource and Learning Support teaching.

Discovery Challenge provides specialised activity sheets based on these books. The sheets are fun and challenging, and encourage independent research by children.

Developed by primary school resource teachers.

Activity Sheets

Over 100 FREE Activity Sheets available at www.obrien.ie, ready for classroom use at junior and middle levels, with more being added all the time. Everything from puzzle pages to language development ideas and visual arts activities.

The O'Brien Reading Programme: Real Books for Schools

Originally published as an integrated programme based on 64 real books, this programme now covers 84 books covering all age ranges, with more on the way!

They offer a wide range of suggestions for classroom use, and were written by teachers who have used our novels as their class reading material for many years. Everything you ever needed to know about using our books in every classroom, from Junior Infants to Sixth Class.

Teaching Guides

Detailed suggestions for classroom use based on novels for 5th and 6th class, O'Brien Teaching Guides are divided into units and include plot summaries of the sections being explored, discussion points and activities: from writing and drama to research and more.

O'Brien Teaching Guides Collections 1, 2 and 3 and O'Brien Teaching Guides for Second Level Schools each featured guides to eight novels. Now all of these, and more, are available for free.

Billeoga Saothair

Tá billeoga saothair ar fáil as gaeilge faoi na leabhair sa tsraith Sos.
Bíodh sport agat sa seomra ranga!
Fíor nó Bréagach, Aimsigh na Difríochtaí, Deir Ó Grádaigh, Rabhlóga, ... Bí ag faire - tá billeoga eile ag teacht!

'Straitéisí éagsúla chun cumas cumarsáide an pháiste a fhorbairt.'Curaclum na Bunscoile, Treoirlínte do Mhúinteoirí, leathanach 67

The Author Speaks

Our authors discuss their books and what inspires them. See what Aubrey Flegg, Siobhán Parkinson, Eoin Colfer, Gerard Whelan, Martin Waddell and many more have to say about their work. They also answer readers' questions and talk about the joys and challenges of writing

The Readers Speak

Teachers and children discuss author visits to their schools, their favourite books from O'Brien Press and much more. We love to hear what our readers think, so e-mail us at books@obrien.ie if you have any comments or suggestions.

Success in Your School Library

Contains everything you need to know to make your school library a hive of activity, written by an expert in the field (PDF file. You can download a free reader from Adobe).

Display Material

The range of promotional material available from the O'Brien Press