Wednesday, February 24

Today is Wednesday of WEEK 6. Wednesday morning, until noon, is the grace period if you did not finish the Reading Diary that was due on Tuesday, and there is a second Reading Diary post today. Then, time for stories; see below for some storytelling ideas.

Class Procedures and Reminders

Project Stack. I'm still working my way through the enormous stack of Project assignments that people have turned in. If you turned in an assignment on Saturday, you should have comments back from me now. If you turned something in on Sunday or on Monday or Tuesday, it is probably still in the stack, waiting for me to get to it. To check to make sure your assignment is in the stack, you can see the contents of the stack here.

Storytelling Style. It's Wednesday, so I'm sharing another possible storytelling style if you're looking for a new idea: Call-In Radio Show — and you can find more Storytelling ideas here if you want to explore more possibilities.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Names of States. Oklahoma comes from a Choctaw word, meaning "red people." The roots are okla "nation, people" and homma "red." Find out more at What All 50 State Names Actually Mean.

Words to Watch: Today's words to watch out for are ALTAR and ALTER. For details, see this blog post.

Featured Storybook: Korean Tales: Kindle of the Kinfolk. These stories are told by the Sun and the Moon, with the warm personality of the Sun contrasting with the colder personality of his brother the Moon. Together they watch the world of human beings with great interest.

Free Book Online: Chinese Fairy Book by Richard Wilhelm. This blog post provides additional information about the stories in the book. I used this for the Myth-Folklore Chinese fairy tales unit, and as you can see it has many more stories that I did not have room for in the unit. Lots to enjoy!

India Featured Book: Ghatotkacha: The Chivalrous Demon. This blog post provides additional information about this reading option for Indian Epics. This comic book is all about the son of Bhima and his rakshasi lover Hidimbi.

Words of Wisdom: Today's proverb poster is It is not economical to go to bed early to save the candles if the result is twins (a Chinese proverb). Details at the Proverb Lab. This is a funny proverb if you take it literally, and of course it can apply to all kinds of unexpected consequences!

Today's Video: Raccoon Dog. Those of you reading Japanese fairy tales this week may have encountered the "tanuki" already — also known as a raccoon dog in English.

Growth Mindset: Today's growth mindset cats have set sail on a voyage of learning: Sailing the shallows is easy, but sailing the deep has meaning. Details at the blog.

Event on Campus: Come by the Union Lobby from 11:30AM - 12:30PM to celebrate National Tortilla Chip Day with some chips and salsa (details). Find out more about this and other events at the Campus Calendar online.

February 24: Wilhelm Grimm. Today, February 24, marks the birthday of the German scholar Wilhelm Grimm in the year 1786. Wilhelm Grimm was the younger of the famous Brothers Grimm; his older brother Jacob was born just one year earlier, in 1785. You can learn more Wilhelm's life and career at Wikipedia; the image below is a portrait of the two brothers:

Note: You can page back through the older blog posts to see any announcements you might have missed, and you can check out the Twitter stream for information and fun stuff during the day.