Feeling Better

Thanks for all the prayer and positive support. God is so great to provide community in the church. My Christian family really helped me to keep things in perspective the past few days. We’re moving on. Our pastor gave a phenomenal sermon today about letting go of what we’re holding on to. I was reminded that so many times the things we see as important and the life we are trying to live is not the life Christ has to offer. For now, life continues at the status quo. If later there are “negative consequences” as far as the world is concerned, it doesn’t matter. If I have less but have freedom in Christ, my life will be more abundant. Thank you God for my pastor and my friends.

Struggling

It’s hard when someone you love hurts you. I’m struggling right now. I chose to trust someone I love, believing the trust would pay off. We found out tonight that’s not the case. I feel responsible, angry, frustrated, confused, and unsure about the situation. This is the only situation in my life I have faced in which I truly feel it is hard to forgive. I can almost always let something roll off my back after a couple of rants and raves, but this is truly a feeling of betrayal. There will be long-term consequences for the wrong done to me. Every time the anger wells up in me, I remind myself of Christ and the way I betray. I think of how often I knowingly make a choice that I know will hurt. This helps me to forgive, but moving on is difficult. I’m not sure what to do about this relationship or the situation. If you are one of my praying friends, be praying for me and the husband. We’re possibly going to making some scary situations soon.

Networking

I love the way blogging has helped keep me connected and helped get me more PLC opportunities.  Thanks for helping with review ideas.  I’m really interested in doing PhD research on this.  Anyone know of a conference I could present at?

CST Review

So I think we should share some strategies for CST review.  What do you do to keep your kids interested in information they’ve “already learned?”  It seems like every year I have to all but stand on my head in front of the room and sing a song (I’d do that if it would work) to get them interested in reviewing for the tests.  Alas they don’t always retain everything, so we have to review to remind them what they learned.  I’ll start off by sharing a couple of my strategies.

I try to play at least one game if not two a week.

-Wheel of Fortune-everytime a kid gets a problem right, he/she gets to pick a letter and earn points for the team

-Jeopardy-which can be made for any subject in a PowerPoint.  I would attach one that’s already been created, but I can’t figure out how to do it with WordPress.  If someone tells me, I’ll share more.

We also make “mini-books” and combine 6 or so and tape them together to make a “Giant Mini-Book” which covers all of the major topics that will be on the test.  Here’s a link with pictures on how to make a minibook.

Well, here are some of my ideas.  What have you got?

Next year

About this time of year I start thinking about the next school year.  We recently adopted a new calendar, so I’ve already gone through and made my personal  calendar and put in all the holidays.  I even started putting the first few units into the calendar just to see how they fit.  I know we’ll revise the pacing guide, but I think a lot of it will stay the same.  Sometimes I feel kind of guilty for looking so far ahead when I still have plenty of days with this group of students.  However, looking ahead often breathes new life into my planning for this year.  The next unit is the last one before the big push for CST review and the tests themselves.  Hopefully I’ll have brilliant ideas for how to review…hmm…I feel another post coming on.