I love school!

T is for teachers, who love what they do,

E is for effort we put in whether happy or blue.

A is for the grade we all try to seek,

C is for the cheer we spread each and every week.

H is for the heart we provide to our kids,

E is for the energy we expend, up to our lids.

R is for the reward on each smiling face and the lifelong learners we create!

I am so blessed to have the job I do, the people I work with, and the family who support it all! 

A Great 2014.

I am so glad to be back at school and in some kind of routine again.  This is going to be the best year ever! "Why?" you ask, because I want it to be!  I was able to get some stuff organized over break and really get my zen back.  My own kiddos, even though they will not admit it, were all happy to be back as well.  

I have some personal New Year's Resolutions like getting back to church on Sundays, exercising, eating right, and being the best momma/ wife/ daughter/ sister/ friend anyone could ask for.  However, I have some school New Year's Resolutions as well.  This would include getting/staying organized and helping my students stay engaged in any class I may be in with them- even if that requires me making a fool of myself every once in a while.  

Making resolutions means nothing if you have no passion behind it.  Being at home made me realize my main goal in life.  It is not to clean my house or make sure everything is in place- just so... It is to live my life to the fullest and give everything I got, so that I can be sure that all the gifts God gave me were used 100%.  

Happy New Year to all and may 2014 be your best year yet!

How I get my kiddos to grow...

Dear Santa,

All I want for Christmas this year is for my students and their families to have a safe, wonderful holiday. I would love for them to read together and study math facts as they drink hot chocolate, enjoying their time with each other all day long. It would be fantastic if you could spark their love for reading and make them want to learn more every single day. Also Santa... if it is not too much to ask could you make me the best teacher ever so my kids become life- long learners forever and always. I promise I will listen to my mommy and daddy, doing whatever they tell me- especially keeping my room clean. I will be nice to my sister, brother, husband, and kids- not playing any tricks on them at all. I will be the best kid ever!
Thank you,
Jillian Wesney
P.S.- The giant plate of cookies and milk will be in the same place they are every year!

Veteran's Day Salute!

I would like to take a moment to extend a sincere thank you to all my veterans.  Many of us do not take the time to realize all we have because of the men and women who have risked their lives for our freedom.  I feel very blessed to be in a country where we have such great opportunities.

I found some really great stuff and I just wanna.....

Share!!!  
One night I decided to look up the best schools in the country and see what we need to do to be more like them.  The top schools have a focus.  The #1 school was a STEM based school.  So.... I searched what needs to be done to make our school efficient in this manner.  This website was a great resource.  It was a blog called .  I love the title don't you?  
It led me to some lessons at a PBS website which gave some great ideas, everything was there that I needed to implement into our day!
I also ran across some interesting information about technology in the classroom, pairing it with the creative writing.
I just want our kiddos to be able to compete in the upcoming industry of whatever they want to be!

Thinking Maps

I was visiting a school website that has a great resource for curriculum maps, for all grade levels and subjects.  We decided at our 3rd grade level meeting that it was a good place to start.  The school website is Higley Unified School District.  Now we would love to see their assessments and resources but they have those available only to username and password "knowers".  However, they did have a link to a web page about Thinking Maps.  This was what I saw when I went to their site:

Thinking Maps are eight specific visual patterns

Visualizing our thinking allows us to have a concrete image of our abstract thoughts. Visual representations enhance the brain's natural ability to detect and construct meaningful patterns. Thinking Maps reduce anxiety by providing familiar visual patterns for thinking and working with complex ideas and situations.

Research: "Although thinking is innate and spontaneous, skillful thinking must be cultivated." -Art Costa, The Thought-Filled Curriculum

It is definitely worth looking into.... I loved their visuals and how they explained the data. Thinking Maps

Working smarter not harder.... how??

Glogster Link

My 3/4 TBT talk about this all the time.  We want to work smarter not harder, yet we do not know what direction to take.  As a group, we know our main focus is our students and helping them grow in their learning.  However, the problem becomes time- I know this is every teacher's nemesis.  My colleagues and I generally do not take a lunch, have meetings every morning, have lunch/recess/bus duties, and if we have a planning period- try to utilize it to the best of our ability.  This is not to complain, we love our jobs and students- yet it is a harsh reality.  We are coming in earlier and leaving later but still feel like we are not just treading water, but drowning.  I stumbled upon this link, hoping it might help us find our way.  For the tutorial, click the link below the picture.  Most of us know how to use Google drive, so why not use it to make our lives more efficient, less complicated... I will let you know how it works out.

I am still working on my game plan... Erase, erase, erase- run a different play.