realia

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The Word of the Day for September 27 is:

realia   \ree-AL-ee-uh\   noun
     : objects or activities used to relate classroom teaching 
to the real life especially of peoples studied

Example sentence:
     The teacher asked the exchange student from Brazil to bring 
in photos, food items, and other realia to share with the class.

Did you know? 
     "Realia," a word invented in the 1930s, is still mostly 
used in the classroom by teachers, especially foreign language 
teachers, and in the library by cataloguers (realia in libraries 
can consist of things as bizarre as an author's hair and teeth 
donated posthumously), but it's seeping out. You might, for 
example, hear of someone putting "realia" -- objects that 
represent present-day life -- in a time capsule. "Realia" is 
also sometimes used philosophically to distinguish real things 
from the theories about them. "Realia" is one of those plural 
formations without a corresponding singular form. 
Like "memorabilia" ("memorable things" 
or "mementos"), "juvenilia" ("works produced in an artist's or 
author's youth"), and "marginalia" ("marginal notes or 
embellishments"), it incorporates the Latin plural ending "-ia."