It's a rainy dreary week so far but we've been so productive. Last week I worked to get my room and plans ready for us to start Daily 5 today with our reading time. I found Daily 5 at the beginning of the school year while browsing some other teacher blogs and was curious as to what it was and started reading up on it. I liked the choice aspect and the development of productive independence so I got the book on my kindle over Christmas break and started getting us ready to start.
I've always struggled with stations. I've always had stations but dreaded changing them out and was always worried that they weren't meaningful. Sometimes I knew they weren't productive because my kids would either finish way too fast or just generally be off task. I've gone through several different ways of organizing stations. I've used tubs, bags, etc. I've done mixed ability groups as well as same ability groups. I've done it all. The worst part was that when my kids weren't engaged neither was I. If I'm correcting behavior or explaining the directions for a stations for the sixth time then I'm not pulling small groups and then I just get lazy. It was a terrible cycle in my room.
I'm excited about Daily 5 for a lot of reasons and so far it's gone great!
Here are some pictures of our first day. I didn't pull out the camera today but it was just more of the same.
The book talks a lot about using a meeting place. We meet on the carpet. Everyone has a spot or I'll tell them to sit in a circle depending on what we're doing.
This is our writing table. Although they don't have to stay here to write, this is where I keep their writing folders, blank paper, and some extra crayons and supplies. There is also an alphabet chart and synonym page laminated and taped down to the table. On one of my boards (sorry no pic!) I have a big work on writing reference chart that I found
here and love. She uses a trifold display board but I just hung mine up.
This is the quick Daily 5 poster I made. Remember I prepared pretty quickly so it's not very fancy. I do plan to made a better more permanent poster. I took this picture early Monday but since then we have gone through and added some guidelines and things to remember under each choice.
This is one of our book bags. I made book bags by leveling my books into three groups. Green for higher reader, yellow for on level, and red for below level. Next, I wrote each name on a zipper top bag in the color of the level I was putting that friend in. They have no idea this is the way they are divided but it made it easier on me when I was stuffing the bags and will be easy to switch books in and out. If I think a friend needs a different level I'll just grab a new bag.
After everyone had a full bag, I sorted them by table and put them into these boxes. When they need them they just go to their table box and find their bag. In the past we've kept these in desks but my books don't seem to hold up as well for some reason when they are stuffed in the back of a desk :)
Here are some friends doing read to someone. We talked about Eekk (Elbow to elbow, knee to knee) and they loved saying the rhyme and making sure their elbows and knees were touching the whole time. This is my favorite of the Daily 5 choices. They are just so sweet sitting next to each other giggling at the story or helping each other with words.
Here are some friends doing word work. Their options for word work are flash cards, phonics games, or a selection of paper/pencil practice.
Monday afternoon we did Work on Writing. I would say out of the four we've done, this was the hardest to get them going in the right direction on. Here is a little bit of our work on writing.
Some may say I'm crazy for starting everything (all but listen to reading and that's coming tomorrow) in two days and that I'm doing it all wrong, and maybe I am. I know my kids though and they catch on fast. At this point in the year I really can't afford to spend weeks training and they don't need weeks anyway. My goal has been to engage them in Daily 5 and get them excited, get the basic expectations down and then correct mistakes as we go and so far it's worked.
