Daily 5 - What the What Am I Doing?

I think I'm really going to like Daily 5...if I can ever figure it out! It just didn't seem that complicated when I was reading about it, but I'm not nailing it, just being totally honest.

Here's the nut of what I understand: Introduce a system of reading and/or working with words; build stamina in that system; use the Comprehension/Accuracy/Fluency/Expand Vocabulary (acronym: CAFE) to introduce strategies to the class; as students move to independence in these systems, use the time to create flexible groups and a conferencing schedule to support students in using the strategies we are learning. This appealed to me because I've always used a combination of Guided Reading and Reader's Workshop for the literacy block, but it wasn't as effective as I wanted (needed) it to be.

Here's what I've been doing: I made a poster (for myself) that is on the wall above my desk. It's not cute, it's not labeled, it's worthless to anybody who is not me. But when we are doing our whole group work on the carpet, I am facing that poster, and I use it to remind me of the steps of how to introduce a Daily 5 component. It's the system these ladies have created to foster independent work, and it includes a lot of modeling and feedback and modeling again. I have it all outlined on my poster. It went great for the first component, Read to Self, and my kiddos are up to 15 minutes of Read to Self every day. (Mostly) up to 15 minutes of Read to Self. What to do when you have one Buster who knows what to do (repeatedly models it incorrectly and correctly, per their instructions) but just needs a babysitter? A job, by the way, I am not applying for?

It's all fine, except I haven't had much conferencing or flexible group time. I still haven't done my running records. Ok, this week, I'm on it.

At around 11 or 12 minutes, it seemed like a good time to introduce the next component, Read to Somebody Else. Last Friday was our 10th day of school, so I'm probably doing fine, but I started Read to Somebody Else on Tuesday and it...was not smooth. Finally, on Thursday night, I went back and re-read that part of the book, and sure enough, I had totally botched it. On Friday, we backed up and did it like we were supposed to in the first place, restarting it. They did much better, and I have some hope now. Here they were on Friday, they are wonderful in spite of my incompetencies.

 I'm following their directions this week on Read to Somebody, and it will take the whole week to do it right. That's very different than the one lesson on one day I had gone with. And, let's assume, it's not just different it's also a lot better. 

Here are the things I've been doing that do not suck: The Pick a Book lesson with the Shoes....nailed it. I also went to the public library just a few blocks from our school and renewed my teacher's library card. This was an easy process that involved my school id, a driver's license, and a check to reimburse them for the 11 books I had out on the card from eleven years ago. You heard me right. Just because it's too freaky, I will add that since I got that list of truant titles...I've found 4 in my room! I did not even know that they were the library's. In my defense, I have a lackluster class library (hence needing the public library) that includes some discards from various libraries. Look, I'm sorry.

They were soooooo excited at the 80 or so books I brought in! We had read "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus" and "Knuffle Bunny" by Mo Willems, and they are among our most popular titles. Thanks to the library, I was able to introduce Elephant and Pig and "Elephant Broke His Trunk" rocked the room.

Everybody got to pick two new books. This took some time. First, we did the "I Pick" my "just right" books lesson from their book. Then they picked the two books that were interesting to them. Then they had to check if it was "just right" and there were some adjustments, not gonna lie, it took us a while to get everybody settled.

I scooped up the remaining books (affectionately referred to, in my head, as The Losers haha) and put them in a special basket  in the class library. In a few weeks, I'll exchange these for more books. I HEART the library!