Inspired

Philippians 4: 4-9

⁴ Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! ⁵ Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. ⁶ Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. ⁸ Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. ⁹ Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. 

Yes it is time to rejoice. God wants nothing more than you to be happy and to rejoice. Yes in Him, but also in life. When you rejoice you are praising Him. You are showing Him thanks. He loves to see you happy and rejoicing! Yep He truly does. 

God is so awesome. I wanted to follow up with some news. I know I've been sharing a lot about teaching and I this past week I put into practice something I learned better yet realized I wasn't doing correctly. I want to set up work stations or tasks for my students to do independently and have tried to do in the past, but it never really worked. Well it didn't work because I did not teach the children how to complete the tasks instead I thought they could do it without me. This week I made a clothespin ABC matching activity and showed the students exactly what to do step by step letting them practice and help me complete the task. I then explained how to raise their hand and show me before taking off the clothespins. We practiced this several times each. We also practiced getting the named activity and taking it to their work station and working quietly on the tasks. I had a picture for the activity and gave it to the student who went and got the task (some needed help) and began working. Again we practiced a lot.Then I put it to the test and had set up stations for the kiddos putting one working on the matching task independently. The other kids were split between me and my paraprofessional. We rotated students and the ones who worked independently didn't even need to ask for help. 

I plan on continuing this with many more tasks. I have made a couple of neat ones that I found on Pinterenest and plan on making many more. The trick is to "teach" it first and then let them be independent. Only 5 years into Special Education and I got one thing down pat. 

Thanks for following me in this journey. God is truly showing Himself to me in the little things and I am happy to be able to rejoice in this discovery.