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Wordless picture books

Lifestyle Columns

Did you know that sharing a wordless picture book can be a powerful way to build important literacy skills? Wordless picture books are books without text that rely solely on the pictures to convey the story. They are often dismissed as being too easy for any age reader. But they are outstanding tools to promote comprehension, vocabulary, listening skills, and they aid in the understanding of character development and story structure. A good reader needs good comprehension skills. They need to remember what has already happened and be able to predict what may happen next. Wordless ...

Off the Shelf

Lifestyle Columns

I love a good story! The question that each of us must ask, however, is what makes a story good? Your mind might hark back to lessons in grammar and writing to come up with answers like flowing dialogue, relatable characters, character growth, conflict, an easy to follow structure, and so on. You might also point to less defined things like making you laugh, being unable to put it down, or making you forget the passage of time. All of these can be elements of a good story, and I’m sure you could have several stories come to mind from just these elements I’ve listed. We love hearing ...

One Sock, many talents

Lifestyle Feature

NEW ULM — One Sock, a band based out of Martin Luther College, has had a pretty standard journey for a band started in high school. A few cover performances here, a talent show appearance there. But last year, One Sock took that one step further. One Sock released its album, “Cicero,” ...

Ironstone pottery replacement for Chinese porcelain?

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If you’re familiar with 19th-century ceramics, you probably know about ironstone. It was first made by English potter Miles Mason, who sold Chinese export porcelain and decided to make his own replacements for broken dishes. To make these replacements, he created a ceramic using slag from processing iron, which his son patented as ironstone in 1813. Heavy, durable and hard to chip, it was clearly different from porcelain, but quickly became a favorite for tableware. Many other potteries began making ironstone, especially in the Staffordshire district of England. Albion Pottery, also ...

Surviving Valentine’s collected as folk art

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For many of us receiving paper valentines may be the stuff of school days -- a piece of the past. The tradition goes back much further, of course, and wasn’t always just for kids. The first commercial valentines in America were made by Esther Howland in Massachusetts in 1850. They were made with paper lace and featured written verses. Before then, people exchanged homemade valentines. Surviving examples are collected as folk art today. The one shown here, preserved in a frame with fabric backing, dates to the mid-1800s and sold at Jeffrey S. Evans & Associates for $279. It is an ...

Rabb shares basketball talent in Deutschland

Lifestyle Feature

Vishe’ Rabb isn’t unfamiliar with German culture, playing high school basketball in Springfield, Minnesota, a city established largely by Scandinavian, Irish and German settlers. The 2017 Springfield High School grad is, however, getting a much closer look at German culture now. Rabb, ...