Tuesday 31 January 2012

100 word challenge

I am very glad that half term is not far away; am shattered at the moment. The return of the cold weather has made waking up on these dark mornings even more of a challenge! And our esteemed education secretary wants teachers to work longer hours.
BAH.
The children are shattered by the end of the day as they go from one guided session to another. 
I remember ERIC (Everybody Reading In Class) when we spent half an hour EVERY DAY  (usually after lunch) reading FOR PLEASURE!!! None of the guided reading sessions, none of the reading activities and reading journals, reviews and the like.
It was a lovely part of the day where we as teachers modelled reading with our classes. Children are like flowers- they need the sunshine and fresh air. (Thanks Mum for this quote :) ) NOT longer hours in school.
Longer school days aren't going to be the answer. Less pressure on teachers to get children to make "more than expected progress" and more time to teach them a love of learning. Now THAT would get my vote.

OK, rant over.

Now onto the challenge.
This week, 100 words to include the word Wednesday.


Here's mine:

Wednesday
Old English wodnesdæg "Woden's day" (chief Anglo-Saxon/Teutonic god.)
 In Middle English time (12th century) this became wednesday, or wednesdai .
 The latin form , dies Mercurii, meaning day of Mercury,  dates to the late 2nd or early 3rd century . (Mercury is the Roman god of commerce, travel, theivery, eloquence and science. )
 Many European countries follow the latin form closely- mercredi (French), mercoledì (Italian), miércoles (Spanish) Mercuri (Corsican), miercuri (Romanian). 
The German name for the day, Mittwoch(literally: "mid-week"), replaced the former name  wodnesdæg in the tenth century. Most Slavic languages follow this pattern and use derivations of "the middle".


Now, I'm not sure if I have followed the rules here really, but I didn't know this before now. I knew about the Wodin part, but hadn't really given it much thought. Write the day on the board in school without a moment's thought each day. Tomorrow I will share this with my class.
Check out the others at http://www.linkytools.com/wordpress_list.aspx?id=128273&type=basic I am going to take a look now.
Next week I shall try something completely different...

14 comments:

  1. I found this especially interesting as in Hebrew, Wednesday is Yom Revyee (fourth day). How excoting is that? Not.

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  2. Anna - this gave me a shiver when I read it because I wrote something almost identical and then changed my mind. Spooky!

    Midlife - In Portuguese it's Quarta-feira which also means 4th day. That's never really made sense to me. It makes sense from your point of view because the Sabbath is Saturday which then makes Sunday the first day, but for a country where the Sabbath is on a Sunday surely Wednesday should be the 3rd day?

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  3. I love etymology. I didn't know the derivation of mercredi, but I do now. Thank you!

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  4. Thanks for your comments. I am always interested in word derivation...although sometimes am still "in the dark" after finding out!
    Sally-Jayne, thanks as always. I will make myself think out of the box next week...

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  5. Rising to the 100 word challenge by explaining & exploring the prompt word - excellent! And thank you for dropping by earlier :) I really appreciate being welcomed into the world of 100WCGU.

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    1. It's great reading all the entries each week, such a fun challenge. Thanks for visiting.

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  6. How funny - my first thought was the derivation of the name - as you will see, if you visit my entry!
    I TOTALLY agree with your rant by the way, and I'm not even a teacher! Atagirl!

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    1. :-) thanks. I love reading, love this challenge...introduced me to so many talented writers :-)

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  7. Fascinating, I love learning about the origins of words. Thank you.
    Lucid gypsy.

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  8. Goodness - if you are going to try something different next week - I can't wait to see what you come up with! This is really interesting and certainly very creative for the prompt!

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    1. Thank you:-) Really enjoy the challenge of these :-)

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  9. I loved this. Clear and exciting.
    The opposite of Michael Gove...

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  10. GSussex
    Thanks for educating us and aiding our love of learning!

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    1. Thanks- my class were fascinated to find out where the word came from!

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