Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Daily 5 Day 1!!

14? 14? Really only 14 students. 7 students did not show up. I thought for sure I would have more students enroll today but I was wrong. I still have only 14 students. I guess they will wait until after Labor Day to start.

Anyway I still had to go on with my plans for the week which included starting Daily 5 today, which was day 2 for students. When I read Daily 5 and The Cafe Book this summer, I was a little confused as to how to begin them both simultaneously, but one of my collegues found a Daily 5 for Dummies and shared it with me. If I knew the link I would share it. I think she just Googled it and found it. I definitely recommend using it. It is helping me see how they flow together.

Even though I knew that I wanted to implement D5 and cafe, I was nervous to start because it was different than anything I had ever done. But it was a huge success. We started by creating an anchor chart for how to come and sit on the carpet, (our mini lesson location). The students modeled the right and wrong way to do it. They got a big kick out of doing it the wrong way.

Then I introduced read to self and we created the i-chart for that. My scholars did a great job of telling what they should do, but struggled with what I should be doing. They truly thought that I should be using the computer or grading papers. (This makes me wonder what other teachers do in their classrooms.) After I got them away from those ideas, we eventually came up with some much better choices. We modeled the right and wrong way to read to self and referee back to the i-chart.

It was then time for the class to practice. I followed the sister's advice and placed students around the room and I I'm glad I did. This allowed me to show my scholars exactly the places in the room they were allowed to sit. After 3 minutes, we stopped, returned to the carpet and discussed how we did, referring back to the i-chart. My scholars were not satisfied with 3 minutes and wanted to read more. (I have never had students beg to read.) I loved it. We practiced for another 3 minutes and reviewed what we did. Marvelous!!

According to the D5 for Dummies I should have also introduced Check for Understanding from the Cafe Book, but I didn't have enough time so I will start my literacy block tomorrow with that and review read to self.

If D5 goes this well the rest of the year, I know I will have a lot of time to work with my scholars in small groups and individually which means they will show a large amount of growth. I am so excited!!

Are you using Daily 5 this school year? How did your first lesson go?

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