GOD KNOWS...

This is my first post since October 2009......I'm not really sure why....Did "life" get in the way, or have I just been lazy? I probably should be ashamed......Hmmmm... Or should I?

I'm not even sure what to write about or even why I'm "coming back" to blogland...although I have missed the "friends" I was beginning to make....

Let's see....Hmmm....What to write about.....Well....

I've changed my profile a tad to better "fit" some of the changes in my life since last we "spoke"....

After many, many years of teaching a myriad of subjects and ages, I have resigned from teaching to work with my husband in his construction company, CAM Builders, LLC http://cambuildersllc.com

WAS THIS A WISE MOVE? ...

...We shall see......but ONE thing is for sure...

God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent....

HE IS IN CONTROL and does, indeed, KNOW!

HOW WONDERFUL IS THAT!

-Mug

Every happening,

great and small, is a parable whereby God speaks to us,

and the art of life is to get the message.

-Malcolm Muggeridge

(Don't you love this name?:)

My 8th-grade students have the above quote for their quote journals tomorrow.

Should be some interesting responses:)

Their term paper topics (I posted a month or so ago about this) are due to me on Monday (I decided to allow them to choose their own topics...to research something they are interested in and would like to know more about) with their tentative purpose and three questions that will be "guiding" their research. They are to choose one of these questions as their probable thesis statement.

Their eyes were beginning to "glaze over" as we went over what a term paper is and the whole broad overview of what they will be doing, so we'll see what they come up with for this first step:)

In the meantime, my high school drama students are hard at work on their semester play which they will perform in three weeks.....Sometimes I feel as if I am on an island all alone with teen-agers!

I love it and I hate it!

Have a Lovely Day!

-Mug

"FRET NOT...." - Ps. 37:1

OVERHEARD IN THE ORCHARD

Said the Robin to the Sparrow,

"I should really like to know

Why these anxious human beings

Rush about and worry so."

Said the Sparrow to the Robin,

"Friend, I think that it must be

That they have no Heavenly Father

Such as cares for you and me."

-Elizabeth Cheney

Sometimes the old children's poetry and stories
really put things into perspective, do they not?

Definitions of to fret -

made rough on the surface; rubbed or worn away.

"A peevish, irrational, fault-finding person not only wears himself out, but is very wearing to others. To fret is to be in a state of vexation..."

The above came from my Friday's devotion from

Streams in the Desert by L.B. Cowman...

(I had marked it, so I went back and re-read it after today's devotion.)

note: My poor husband (and everyone else who has had to be around me)..

..I have been quite a "Martha" lately fretting about a great many things...

Hmmm...I've always related to Martha in that....My goodness! Someone had to prepare the meal, did they not? We can't ALL be Mary's....or can we?

...and this was today's:

In nothing be anxious... Phil. 4:6

Twice or thrice a day, look to see if your heart is not disquieted about something; and if you find that it is, take care forthwith to restore it to calm. -Francis de Sales

A LOVELY VISIT.....

It's been a while since I've "been blogging"....

School and life stepped up the pace causing me to make conscious choices on how my time was spent....and sometimes to just "do the next thing" as God sent a few precious "assignments" our way.

For example,

Our great-niece visited one lovely, recent Sunday afternoon.....

Have a Lovely Day!

-Mug

PIECES OF A GEORGIA TEA PARTY....

Okay.....Sometimes I am NOT very bright...aarrrghhh!

I created a new blog yesterday thinking I would use it as a "subscribe only" blog for my students and their parents to see photos, et cetera of things we do at school.

Well, today I spent an inordinate amount of time creating a new post with the above title for what I thought was THIS blog......but it wasn't, it was my NEW blog. The students and parents don't know about the blog because I was still "toying' with the idea of exactly what and how and even IF I really wanted to do that.

Anyway, today's blog may be found at http://bloggingwithmrsmazz.blogspot.com/

It actually looks better on my new blog:(

Aaarrghhh!

-Mug

TERM PAPER TOPICS

Okay, Lovely Readers, I need help!

It has been mandated by the powers that be at our school that every grade has to write a term paper. In the junior high and high school, the English classes have first semester; the history classes have second semester. (I plan to begin sometime in October.)

Not only must they have a written paper, but it must be such that it can be developed into a power point or smart board presentation also...aarghhh! ....They will receive 2 grades....one for the paper; one for the presentation.

My problem: I need about 35 suggestions for possible topics.

(I have 32 eighth graders, and I would like for them each to have a different topic.)

These topics need to be able to sustain four or five sources. Oh, and did I mention that these term papers are to be written in MLA format?

Have a Lovely Day!

-Mug

THE QUOTE JOURNAL

My eighth graders keep what I call a Quote Journal.

I set a timer for 10 minutes at the beginning of every class period during which they copy the quote of the day from the board and write a two-paragraph response...

Their first paragraph should tell what they think the quote means. The second paragraph should give an example of how the quote applies to their lives.

When the timer "dings", we discuss the quote as a class during which time they may add to their responses as they see fit in order to get the required 75 words.

Last year I decided to change it up a little by giving them an Unjournaling once or twice a week. The students loved it!

They were having fun AND developing creative writing skills along with increasing their vocabulary.

Great book!

Includes entries such as ........

Write a story about a girl named Dot,

but you may use NO letters with dots over them...i.e. no Ii's or Jj's.

This is harder than you might think and forced them to think "outside the box" as they tried to think of other words that meant the same but had no I or j in it. For example, the word said. They had to use retorted or yelled, etc, etc.

They were using the thesaurus and the dictionary to find words:)

My students are a pretty competitive bunch, so each one was trying to have the best story with the best words:)

On another day we did this one:

Write a good sentence consisting entirely of three-syllable words.

(You may use the articles a, an, the.)

and this one:

Write a paragraph that twenty words with double vowels.

Examples: poodle, peep, needle

and this one:

Write a good sentence in which every word begins with a letter from the word "sentence" in the same order as the letters in "sentence"....

Example: the first word in your sentence would begin with "s", the second word would begin with "e", the third with "n", etc.

Isn't this fun?!

And then sometimes on Mondays, we just have plain old "FREE WRITING":)

Write freely now to your heart's desire

the number of words that I require:)

Have a Lovely Day!

-Mug

P.S. Pictured below is their Homework Board: