Comments on: The Days of the Week

By: steve

steve — Tue, 26 Mar 2002 04:58:54 +0000

Hey. I have an idea how to make learning of the days easier. For one you could do a little ‘adult learing’ and discover where the origin of the weekdays and then wrap them up into child-speak and hopefully your kid might remember the story and be able to recall the days. Eg

Most Latin-based languages connect each day of the week with one of the seven “planets” of the ancient times: Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. French, for example uses:

English French “Planet”
Monday lundi Moon
Tuesday mardi Mars
Wednesday mercredi Mercury
Thursday jeudi Jupiter
Friday vendredi Venus
Saturday samedi Saturn
Sunday dimanche (Sun)

English has retained the original planets in the names for Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. For the four other days, however, the names of Anglo-Saxon or Nordic gods have replaced the Roman gods that gave name to the planets. Thus, Tuesday is named after Tiw, Wednesday is named after Woden, Thursday is named after Thor, and Friday is named after Freya.

Now all you have to do is do some research on the nordic gods and wrap them up in a story.
Have fun!

By: Miguel

Miguel — Thu, 21 Mar 2002 01:18:32 +0000

Gah. She has those! We’d just never been trying to teach her the days before, all together. Will do.

Hmm. wonder if I could get some PIN code underpants for me…

By: melly

melly — Thu, 21 Mar 2002 00:06:12 +0000

You could have done Days of the Week underpants. That’s how I learned.

By: jamese

jamese — Wed, 20 Mar 2002 23:05:53 +0000

Excellent solution. Mnemonic devices, whether physical or verbal, have always helped me to recall new stuff. For example, off the top of my head I can tell you that taxonomic classification is done descending through: kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species. Now, if only I’d left room in my noggin’ for that other stuff, like where I live. Mommy?

By: Miguel

Miguel — Wed, 20 Mar 2002 13:14:09 +0000

That’s my feeling too. I mean, it was the first time she’d been expected to explicitly learn something in a structured way. She is a brilliant kid in a lot of ways. It’s just a matter of learning to learn in this new way, I think, and a matter for us as much of not screwing up and making her hate learning as it is actual teaching.

By: chris

chris — Wed, 20 Mar 2002 13:11:20 +0000

I’m sure she was just nervous at being the focus of attention and some new expectations. When she gains a little self-confidence after a bit, look out…