Links for Easy Summertime Living and Learning

Why not make the living – AND – the learning easy this Summertime by signing up to receive daily and/or weekly emails from three of my very favorite all-year-long online services?

(1)   A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg

The New York Times called A.Word.A.Day “The most welcomed, most enduring piece of daily mass e-mail in cyberspace.”

Monday through Friday, subscribers receive a new word, one of five purposefully grouped words that underscore a particular teaching point.

This past week?
Selected words were those that appeared to be misspellings:

calyculus
swoopstake
theocrasy
agrement
jargoon

How fun to learn why and how they weren’t!

Take a look at Friday’s post for jargoon to see all that each post offers:

jargoon

PRONUNCIATION:
(jahr-GOON)
MEANING:
noun: A colorless, pale yellow, or smoky variety of zircon.
ETYMOLOGY:
From French jargon, from Italian giargone, from Persian zargun (golden). Earliest documented use: 1769.
USAGE:
"The genial jeweler then suggested white jargoon."
P.G. Wodehouse; The Intrusion of Jimmy; W.J. Watt and Co.; 1910.
Explore "jargoon" in the Visual Thesaurus.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
The greatest obstacle to discovering the shape of the earth, the continents, and the oceans was not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge. -Daniel J. Boorstin, historian, professor, attorney, and writer (1914-2004)

I especially enjoy the Visual Thesaurus.

I especially appreciate the added inclusion of previous days’ words, just in case the definitions and pronunciations had somehow lost their place on my brain’s Hard Drive.

Click here to increase your vocabulary on a daily basis.  

You can send a Gift Subscription too!

(2)  TransparentLanguage – Learn a New Word a Day in a Foreign Language!

Thanks to my bi-lingual Brazilian-born grandson, Brazilian Portuguese is my Transparent language of choice.

Truthfully, I still don’t speak this language well – and my sweet, sweet lindo namerado (handsome boyfriend) recently turned three.
BUT, I do understand his words and conversation.

I especially love the ability to hear a native speak the word, not only by itself but in a sentence.
And like A.Word.A.Day, I can always return to previous words that – somehow – refused to stick.

Today’s entry?

Portuguese word:          Amanhã
English translation:      Tomorrow
Part of speech:              Adverb
Portuguese examples:  Meu filho chega amanhã de sua viagem.
English examples:         My son arrives tomorrow from his trip.

(3) Booklist Online 

I have always relied on Booklist, the bi-monthly review journal of the American Library Association, available at most libraries, to keep me sharp and smart when it comes to the best of children’s books being published. I’m happy to report that many free Booklist offerings are now available online. For example, the Great Reads page, with terrific book recommendations for both kids and adults, Booklist’s Common Core resources homepage, the Bookends blog by Cindy and Lynn, the monthly youth e-newsletters Quick Tips, aimed at connecting books to the classroom, and the new e-newsletter focused on YA Books, Booklandia, and the free Webinars.  Maybe amanhã you'll check out the above, then sign up to subscribe, thus making your summer's living and learning link-easy?! Esther Hershenhorn P.S. Don't forget to enter our current giveaway for a chance to win a copy of Jill Esbaum's brand new nonfiction book, Angry Birds Playground: Dinosaurs (National Geographic). See Jill's post for details.