Our favourite Gaelic learning resources for children

While we tutor children from all over the globe, My Primary Tutor is a proudly Scottish business, and so we like to take a moment to celebrate all that is Scottish each St Andrew’s Day! Last year we wrote about how learning Gaelic can be hugely beneficial for children – not just as a way of keeping up important Scots cultural traditions, but also because learning language has been proven to benefit ALL areas of a child’s education!

This year we’re sharing our very favourite children’s Gaelic learning resources – a hand-picked list of ideas and websites that you can use to help expose your child to more Gaelic learning.

BBC Alba

Traditionally, the BBC regional channels weren’t much good for anything more than the local news/weather and perhaps a dodgy soap opera with flimsy sets. These days much more time, budget and thought is given to these channels, and BBC Alba has a huge range of programs to choose from. Have it on in the background so they can learn by osmosis, or sit and watch together and see if you can translate – it doesn’t matter what your fluency level is, there is learning to be had.

SpeakGaelic

If what you’re after is a Gaelic language learning programme that the whole family can join in with, SpeakGaelic is definitely the place to go. You can access the learning as a programme on the iPlayer, a podcast on BBC Sounds, a radio show on Radio nan Gàidheal and much, much more. The website has loads of great learning resources to download as well. Give it a try, it’s brilliant!

Colin and Cumberland

This part of the BBC site is no longer maintained, but some of the activities and games are still there and are great for primary aged children! It’s got some very funny stories and kids will love the main characters – a boy named Colin, and his lovely dog Cumberland.

LearnGaelic

This site is not quite as well geared to children as others, but it has LOADS of great resources if you spend some time looking. We especially like the ‘how and why’ section which talks about why learning Gaelic is important and even has a Mythbusting section which addresses common misconceptions about it.

Gaelic4Parents

This is one of our favourites because they break the learning and resources down into age groups – making it really easy to find an age-appropriate way to enjoy Gaelic as a family! They also have a SoundCloud account with lots of audio books read in Gaelic, including The Gruffalo and many, many more!

These are some of the resources we like best – but we love finding out about new ones so if you know of any we haven’t mentioned, get in touch and let us know!