Budding Blogger Showcase: What I Have Learned


Hi, I'm Jessica from What I Have Learned.


I live in California and with my husband and two rambunctious sons.  Don't boys have so much energy?!?!  



I currently teach second grade, but have taught all grades, K-5 within the past fourteen years.  People sometimes ask me which grade is my favorite, and, well . . . each one has it's pluses and minuses, it's quirks, and it's light bulb moments.  I'm loving where I'm at right now.

I love teaching math and reading, the core subjects.  Scaffolding the learning within these areas and then watching how students make sense and find patterns is AMAZING!  I love being able to take them from point A to point B and see their growth along the way.  I "move" my students and I love watching their growth.  Writing is kinda fun, too.  I'm not that into social studies and science, which is why I like to find interesting things for the students to do in those content areas

Right now, if you popped into my classroom, you’d see students seeing all different kinds of things.  I’m a firm believer in differentiating instruction and giving students what they need to succeed.  That doesn’t mean everyone does the same thing at the same time.  Quite the opposite.  I do small groups for almost everything and students are hard at work on their own learning goals.

What gets me through one of “those” days?  Those days  . . . come farther and farther apart the more you’ve been teaching.  Knowing that it’s just a day and that tomorrow is another day.  Sometimes it’s just one of those years, it seems.  Routine and schedule get me through the day and week.  Having clear expectations for my students and myself.  Not trying to do it all, but realizing that despite my best effort, things do go wrong, but students still learn.

What can I not live without?  My laptop.  It is by far my most important teaching resource right now, in terms of planning, finding other resources, and teaching.  I am a technology person, always trying to figure out how to make something better and doing it more efficiently.

One of my favorite classroom activities that we did this year was actually done by my student teacher.  She had to teach an art lesson.  I found one on Pinterest, where students paint leaves with corks, making them a circle.


 The art lesson was great, but the day after, was even better.  We counted our circles and I challenged table groups to figure out how many circles each table group had by adding all the individual circles together.



It make a great math problem.  We then added up all the table groups to find out how many circles we had as a whole class.  I love making math meaningful for the students.  


My blogging goal for this year is to be more consistent.  Don’t we all want more consistency in our lives?  Now that we’re though the beginning of the year, I really want to put some time and effort into this blog to share all the great things we’re doing in our room!

Thank you for taking the time to read through this and get to know me better.  Grab a cup of coffee, come for a visit and see What I Have Learned.

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2 comments

  1. Thanks for sharing about yourself, Jessica! It's so nice to get to know you!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love Jessica's blog! Thanks for sharing! :)

    Tiffany
    KTeacherTiff

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for visiting my blog and sharing ideas! I love to read your comments. I like to reply back by email, so make sure you have that option enabled so we can chat! :)

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