Daily 5 - Chapter 3!

Here we are with Chapter 3 of the Daily 5!

The amazing Anna Brantley over at Crazy for First Grade, Mrs. Freshwater, and Jana at Thinking Outloud were lovely enough to host these books studies. There are 2 going on (Can I join both?!?)

 Chapter 3 went through a few routines that are crucial to a successful D5 program. 

One that stood out to me was the modeling of "good-fit" books. This concept is one that I am sure every teacher talks about with their students, but the comparison to shoes in Figure 3-3, was one I loved! It makes so much sense and I can't wait to use it next year!

I also made this little poster to reinforce the concept!

Okay... I'm going to share a secret... don't judge... but I only made ONE anchor chart last year with my class, ONE. And... before last year and my blogosphere discoveries I hadn't actually heard the words "anchor chart."

Ahhhh, okay I am a horrible teacher! But hey, isn't that why we're doing this book study?!?! To learn and grow! Well, learning and growing is exactly what I'm doing! I love to doodle & create posters so I have a feeling I will be making lots and lots of adorable anchor charts with my kiddos!

Now, I have read some teachers saying they are already making anchor charts during the summer, but I thought the purpose was to make it together with the students to further enforce their learning. That way they are a part of it, right?? Please correct me if I'm wrong - I wanna make sure I have this right before I start next year!

Last, but not least, I loved the short intervals or repeated practice to build up their STAMINA! If anyone read my last post, building stamina has quickly become one of my favorite parts of introducing the D5 and I made some cute little posters to remind our students to build their "reading muscles."

You can click on the pics to get my lil reading hippos!

  

Now go link up so I can read your genius ideas!


Susan

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Building Stamina Posters! D5: Chapter 2

 I am linking up with Mrs. Saoud over at Primary Graffiti  and Teaching it with Style for Chapter 2 of our Daily 5 book study!!

Go on over and link up - she has some awesome freebies :)

Hands down, my favorite part of chapter 2 is the idea of building STAMINA!

By the end of the year I know my first graders as smart, independent, ready-for-2nd grade geniuses!! It is easy to forget how they came into first grade... wide-eyed, eager, impatient, antsy, can't do anything for more than a minute without losing focus...They need to build stamina!

Duh, Susan, duh!

I often fall into the category of the teacher who models something once or twice and then expects my students to do it perfectly from then on out. Helllooooo [I hear myself saying] didn't I show you how to do this already?!?!!? I am excited to teach building stamina to my students and I will certainly use the analogy of an athlete. 

My students will learn that they working on their "reading muscles" as they practice, practice, practice building their stamina.

I made these cute little poster fors next year:

Click on them to head over to TpT to download for free!

See ya next time!

Susan

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Daily 5 - Chapter 1!

For a little over a year now I have been reading about Daily 5 in the blogosphere and wondering if it would work in my classroom. Wellll.. I figured this summer would be the perfect time to read the book and get ready to implement it into my classroom!

After reading through the book (in one day!) I cannot wait to start my Daily 5 journey. I told one of my teammates about it and she just bought the book too!

This year will be my third year teaching so of course, there are so many things I learn and tweak every day, every week, and every year to better fine tune my craft. My literacy block has been a weak point in my self-reflection and my goal this year is to run my literacy groups smoothly while my other students are engaged in meaningful literacy activities.

The past two years I have tried using centers. They have worked... for the most part.. but I feel like I can do better. The other thing about centers is that I was doing sooooo much work everyday to get each center ready for the day or week. My centers the past two years have been the following:
- Read to Self

- Buddy read

- Word Wall activities

- Spelling

- Writing prompts

- Math games

I already had most of the Daily 5 choices, but now I can do these with more structure. I am currently on the lookout for some sort of listening center (Donorchoose?!?) and I am excited to hear how everyone else already implements or plans to implement Daily 5 next year.

I think it will take a lot of self-control on my part to implement it correctly and take the time to model, model, model, model, model and MODEL each part of Daily 5, but I think it will be so worth it!

Link up with Lory to let me know what you're doing with Daily 5!

Susan

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