Handle Sleeplessness


Wow. Tuesday... Good day. Took a day I wasn't too thrilled about doing due to a sleepless night and turned it oh so nice.

#TLAP

Teach Like a Pirate
So Monday night, I planned and "attended" the #TLAP Twitter chat. If you haven't done a chat before, TLAP (Teach Like a Pirate) is a great one to get you started. It starts at 8 PM central on Monday nights (I'll let you work out the other zones). I came out of the chat with two ideas. Keep my students active. And get them to generate questions. My mind was buzzing (hey, maybe why I couldn't sleep). But those two ideas activity + questioning = engagement.

Around the World (my classroom)

Here's the basic review lesson we did. Put vocab words up all over the room. Students go around the room to each word and ask a partner a question. The partner tries to answer. BUT THEN the partner who answered gets to ask another question about the same word. I like this because that second question drives the questioning deeper. Students think, "Oh I need to change the question. How can I ask it differently." My job, while students were doing this, was to go around and ask them about their great questions. And...It worked! It kept my attention and theirs.


Why It Worked

  • Very clear with students about expectations
  • Kept them moving
  • Kept them talking
  • Kept the guessing
  • Kept them thinking
  • Drank a lot of coffee in the AM
  • Dialed way back on PM coffee
  • Ate some chocolate and nuts! 
  • Worked at not being all so serious - Gotta laugh at yourself when you can't sleep!
What's this got to do with losing the final fifteen? 

Everything. Because pulling a win out of a difficult situation is what you have to do over and over to lose weight. In weight loss and diet change, you get decision after decision come your way where you have to change your thinking. I think that's why it's stressful. 

We have to get our thinking to the place where the right decisions about food aren't really decisions anymore; they are formed habits.

Then the stress is out of it.  Now lets get home and not do a double dinner! Still needed to mess with that one until I get it down pat.

 Okay, in my sleepy mind, that all goes together. 

How do you get through your difficult days? Tell me in the comments. You have my permission. Really.




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