Robert Burns Digital Resources

Scots celebrate their national poet, Robert Burns, on 25 January each year. These ebooks are useful for classroom work about the poet and the event.

To find out more about Burns Night, check out Visitscotland’s ebook "Hold Your Own Burns Supper", which includes recipes, information about the poet and a great video of traditional ceilidh dancing, another feature of many Burns suppers. There's an interesting infographic about the different people from around the world Burns has influenced, from Abraham Lincoln to Muhammad Ali. And a simple guide to what to where, with images, that would allow you to revise clothes vocabulary. Different parts are usable from A2 to B2. Or you might just want to try a recipe!

"Burns for the Weans" (children) is a downloadable book for kids, with a nice simple biography and several of Burns’ most popular poems, as well as arts and crafts activities. The biography is easy enough for A2 and would fit well into a sequence about life for children in the 18th and 19th centuries as it has a lot about Burns' schooling and early life.

The BBC children's news site, Newsround, has a nice, simple guide to Burns Night. The first part of the text, about Burns, is simple enough for A1+. The rest of the page is usable from A2. There's a nice video of Scottish schoolchildren explaining how they celebrate Burns Night, an opportunity to introduce your pupils to Scottish accents.