This Week in Daily Five

I started doing Daily Five the first week of school, but it's sort of finding its groove these last....couple of weeks. No, really. It wasn't until December that I started to feel like I had my feet. It's not even that it's complicated (I'll leave it to greater minds to explain the details) but the act of figuring out how it works for me with this group of students has not been trivial. In full disclosure, I really only do it from 9:35 to 11:15, which gives me just enough time for three mini lessons and three rounds of Daily 5 3. We only do Read to Self, Read to Someone, and Word Work, though I keep committing (then backing out of) Writing. We already do a Writer's Workshop block, outside of that literacy time, so it's not like they aren't writing. It's a logistical issue for me...since there are only three rotations, 4 options means that I will have to work harder keeping track of what they've done over several days, to make sure there's balance. Friends...I'm not up to it. Just saying.

I took the plunge after Thanksgiving and had them make choices. Up until then, it was we all read to ourselves, we all read to somebody else, we all do word work. I was super worried about giving them more independence. I thought for sure some of them would not be able to read to somebody else quietly enough to also have people reading to themselves at the same time. Same for word work. And look, I'm not prone to hysteria, nor am I terribly obsessive about control. Let's just say... I had reason to believe that they would not handle this well. I also had evidence that I would not handle this well.

I was so wrong, on both counts. There is such a lovely 'buzz' of productive work during this literacy block. I love that I get to listen to every child read, individually, every week. It helps me collect ideas for lessons and small group work too. (Though the small group work is definitely my Achilles in this situation....I'm telling myself that I'm getting plenty of traction with individual conferences, but I am still hoping I'll figure this out! Tell me...how do people plan all this? and prep for all this? how many hours are in your day, I ask you??)

My friend, colleague, and former principal shared this photo from his new school, and it made me happy!

I have no control over what happens at their homes each night, but they are getting those minutes during the day, and now I want to show this to my students just to tighten up our "sense of urgency". Lately I've been feeling like they're getting a little loose with "getting started right away" and "working the whole time". I always have that feeling, actually, but when I take a step back and really look at what they are doing...I'm all smiles, I promise!

 

Read to self

 Read to somebody

(these two are like peas and carrots...love it!)

  Word Work

 I've been modeling a "Talk to the Text" comprehension strategy for the last two weeks, and they are loving it! They write on post-it notes, leaving tracks of their thinking, as they read. It can be a question, a connection, a summary, a prediction...They really love it!  

ps...these head phones serve no purpose, really. They are broken headphones that I cut the cords off of. They have no real noise blocking qualities. The kids, however, are convinced they do haha and just putting them on seems to help them focus during Read to Self.

I love finding these little "tracks of their thinking" in the books, and this is one of my favorites, found in "Pigeon Wants a Puppy". (It says, "This pegeon has lost it" haha!!)

{LOVE}