This week we’re off to the Commonwealth Games, tying our tongues in knots for Spoonerism Day and finishing with two DJs who are making Adelaide lunchtimes considerably louder.

The FIFA World Cup has only just wrapped up, but there’s no time to put away the flags because the Commonwealth Games begin in Glasgow early Friday morning, Aussie time.

If you’d like to bring a bit of the Games into your classroom, the official Glasgow 2026 team has created free resources for Early Learning, Primary and Secondary students. There are lessons covering everything from geography, music, literacy, and numeracy… plus some easy, fun activities, including puzzles and spot-the-difference.

Here’s the link where you can sign up to have the official classroom resource pack emailed to you.

And if you need something to hook the kids in… meet Finnie. She’s the Games mascot, a self-described “hooved hype-master” and, naturally, a unicorn, because the unicorn is Scotland’s national animal. Who knew?

What exactly is The Commonwealth? Why do its countries all get together every four years to run, swim, box, bowl and throw very heavy things? And why are this year’s Games looking a little different?

In this week’s Squiz Kids Shortcut, we head to Glasgow to unpack the who, what, when, where, why and how of the Commonwealth Games.

We discover how the Games grew out of the old British Empire Games, who we should be watching this year, and how Glasgow stepped in to save the day after Victoria pulled out as host.

It’s a timely classroom listen before the Games begin early Friday morning… and, as always, there’s a S’Quiz waiting at the end.

In your podcast feed this Tuesday.

If you’ve ever hit your “bunny phone” instead of your “funny bone”, congratulations—you’ve made a spoonerism.

You may know that spoonerisms are phrases created when the starting sounds of two words are swapped around, but did you know that they were named after Reverend William Archibald Spooner, an Oxford teacher who had a reputation for getting his sounds slightly tangled. And because July 22 marks his birthday, it has become known as Spoonerism Day.

It’s a lovely excuse to play with language in the classroom.

You could:

We’ve created a list to get you started. Once your students have cracked those, challenge them to come up with their own.

How would you feel if you looked out your classroom window and discovered two DJs performing a full-blown dance set from the back of a ute?

Delighted? Horrified? Already mentally rewriting your afternoon lesson plan?

That’s the joyful chaos unfolding outside schools across Adelaide, where 22-year-olds James Gheude and Will Donaghey - better known as JWBeats - have been turning ordinary lunch breaks into spontaneous dance parties.

The pair pull up outside the school gates, set up their decks and start pumping out music, while hundreds of students gather inside the fence to dance along. They’ve already visited 10 schools—and students are now flooding their social media pages with requests to make theirs the next stop.

Teachers and parents have apparently been getting into it too, although we’d love to know how much learning happens in the lesson immediately afterwards…

Here’s what’s happening around the country and the world:

July 19 - 25 - National Farm Safety Week - here’s an excellent resource from Farmsafe Australia

Monday, July 20 - International Chess Day
- International Moon Day
Tuesday, July 21 - National Lamington Day
Wednesday, July 22 - Spoonerism Day
- World Brain Day
Thursday, July 23 - The Commonwealth Games start (UK time), and the Opening Ceremony is early Friday morning Aussie time.
- also Gorgeous Grandma Day!!
Friday, July 24 - National Pyjama Day
- Schools Tree Day
Saturday, July 25 - Christmas in July
- National Day of the Cowboy (USA)
Sunday, July 26 - National Tree Day
- Tour de France finishes