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.

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 Line: Free Printable for the Elementary Classroom

A few years ago, a special education teacher at a staff meeting pulled out a vertical number line and showed how she used it with her students. I filed it…

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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 Fairy Tale vs Legend: Key Differences

Understanding the difference between a fable vs folktale — and where fairy tales and legends fit in — is one of those things that seems clear until you have to…

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Reading | Fall | Social Studies

Thanksgiving History Timeline Activity for Second Grade

Thanksgiving history timeline activities help students keep the story together across multiple read-alouds. When students can see the events arranged chronologically — from Plymouth, England to the first harvest —…

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Instructional Strategies

How to Plan Your Teaching Day and Week: A Simple Strategy to Stay Sane

If there’s one thing that keeps me grounded during a hectic school year, it’s having a solid daily plan for teaching. Between read-alouds, recess, math blocks, and maybe even jury…

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Fall

Halloween Center Activities for the Elementary Classroom

Halloween is one of the trickiest days for teachers to navigate. Students arrive excited, sometimes in costume, and hold on to that excitement until the end of the school day….

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Reading | Reading Comprehension

Reading Notebook Example for Second Grade

We’ve been having fun with our Reading Notebooks. I love how this one turned out, so I thought I’d share it with you. First, we read My Name is Yoon,…

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Math | Fall

Fall Leaves Math Art Activity for Second Grade

Mix art and math with this fun fall art project. Students create a Fall tree using dots and then use their three-digit addition strategies to figure out how many dots are in their table group. We also extended it to find out the number of dots in our class. A great fun, engaging math AND art activity.

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Reading | Goal Setting

Goal Setting in the Elementary Classroom: How I Use Anchor Charts to Build Independence

Setting goals with students is one of the most powerful ways to build motivation and accountability—especially in second grade. While I’m not quite ready to dive into full-blown individual data…

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Math

Place Value Accordion: A Hands-On Way to Teach Standard and Expanded Form

If you’ve ever watched your students’ eyes glaze over during place value lessons, you know how tricky it can be to help them see the connection between digits and their…

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