Author: Jessica Boschen

Jessica shares her passion for teaching and education on What I Have Learned. Jessica has 16 years of elementary teaching experience and currently homeschools her two middle school boys. She enjoys scaffolding learning for students, focusing on helping our most challenging learners achieve success in all academic areas.

Math

Cut & Paste Math Activities for Second Grade

One of my favorite resources to use in my second-grade classroom are these Cut and Paste Math Activities for Second Grade. I created them because I wanted some worksheets that were…

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Reading

26 Read Alouds for 2nd Grade That Build Comprehension and a Love of Stories

Second graders are at a sweet spot with reading. They are ready for longer stories, strong characters, and running jokes that carry across chapters, but many are not quite ready…

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Classroom Management | Back-to-School | Goal Setting

Building Classroom Community with Beginning of the Year Anchor Charts

During the first few days of school, building classroom community is crucial. It is important to ensure that students not only understand their roles but also know how to make…

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Math

How to Use Example and Non-Example in Math with Two-Digit Subtraction

Comparing examples and non-examples in math is a great way to better understand math concepts. The process of comparing the two can help to highlight what the concept is about…

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Teacher Professional Practice

How to Get Your Classroom Funded with DonorsChoose

Ever feel like your classroom wish list keeps growing, but your budget doesn’t? That’s where DonorsChoose comes in. It’s one of the easiest ways to get classroom materials, books, furniture,…

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Classroom Management

2nd Grade Classroom Tour – Setting Up a Brand New Classroom

Have you ever moved into a brand-new classroom? I had that opportunity after moving rooms three times in about 18 months. Here is a tour of my 2013-2014 second-grade classroom…

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Math

Vertical Number Lines

Do you ever use vertical number lines with your elementary students? A vertical number line is a variation on a traditional number line that helps students see numbers vertically as…

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Reading | Fall | Reading Comprehension | Social Studies

Describe the Connection Between Historical Events

Describe the connections between historical events is a Common Core Standard that is hard to teach! Here is how I taught this standard with the events leading up to the first Thanksgiving. Through this unit, students asked and answered questions, we made a timeline, we read great books, AND we figured out the connection between historical events.

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Reading | Fall | Reading Comprehension | Social Studies

Ask and Answer Questions about Thanksgiving

Asking and answering questions can be hard for students! We set up a routine where students would write 6 questions and other students would answer those six questions. This was the perfect way for me to monitor whether students could ask and answer questions about any topic! Here is how we applied it to Thanksgiving.

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Reading

Fable vs. Folktale vs. Fairytale vs. Legend – What are the Similarities and Differences Between Them?

Folklore, with its rich tapestry of fables, folktales, fairy tales, and legends, makes a great read-aloud and lesson plan. Most of the time, these stories are familiar to students. However,…

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Writing

Narrative Writing Tools

Last spring I did a couple of narrative writing activities with my students, including emphasizing small moments and doing some brainstorming and planning. The planning post has been one of…

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Reading | Fall

Create a Timeline about the Events Leading Up to the First Thanksgiving

The month of November is the perfect time to spend in an in-depth study of the events that lead to the first Thanksgiving. In this blog post, I outline how we…

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