Thursday, November 17, 2005

The Vikings and Thor's Day

Today I worked with a group of third graders reading an article on the Vikings in the National Geographic Explorer! magazine for children.

I've been through college and graduate school, and I've taught school for over 25 years, and I learned something new today from a third grade magazine - which is a good thing. When people stop learning, they stop living. And Lord knows I have more to learn than I could possibly learn in a million years. Maybe what I learned today was in one of those long-forgotten classes from my past, and I just don't remember it. As a matter of fact, upon further thought, that's a STRONG possibility - even a probability. If that's the case, then I re-learned it today. Here it is:

The Vikings had many gods. One of Vikings' gods was Thor, the god of thunder and lightning. Our "Thursday" comes from a Viking word meaning Thor's day. TA-DA! Okay, not an earth-shattering tidbit of information, but I thought it was pretty cool. Did any of you remember it from your schooling?

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