Daily 5 Series: Introduction

"There is a quiet and calm hum to the room.  Some children are lying on the floor with Book Boxes full of 'Good Fit" Books sitting next to them.  As they read to themselves, a child nearby reads the pictures in a book, giggling at a funny part...Some children are curled up in a corner on pillows with partners, reading a particularly animated section from a Junie B. Jones book...Other students are scattered about at tables, heads bent, pens moving methodically across the pages of their journals, crafting tantalizing tall tales, silly songs, or a tearful retelling of a pet goldfish succumbing to old age at home last night...others are sitting on the floor or at a table, tongues between their lips as they focus intently on building some of the word families and sight words using Wikki Stix or...play dough.  Over on a couch two students are wearing headphones, books in laps, as they listen to tapes of the books, turning the pages and following along with the voice on tape...Where are the Teachers?  There we are sitting on the floor with a group of four students.  We are having an animated discussion about our favorite strategies to help us comprehend the story in front of us...the rest of the children in the class are working by themselves, completely independent."   -Gail Boushey and Joan Moser


I am in my second "Official"  year of implementing Daily 5 in my classroom, and like most users of the program, I LOVE IT!  I will be doing a Daily 5 series of blogs to give my take on how I use Daily 5 in my classroom and hopefully offer some ideas to some of you!  Now, where to begin?......


Let's start with the basics.  There are a few "essentials" which I use in my classroom to make Daily 5 run smoothly.  Much of Daily 5's success depends on organization and passion in the program.  If YOU look forward to Readers' Workshop, chances are that your students feel that passion and they too anticipate the next RW session :)  Here is my list of essential Daily 5 Materials/Tools which I have collected from the Daily 5 book, blogs, and tweetpeeps I follow!

Bins

I purchased these from Dollar Tree.  I have each labeled with a student number.  Inside they have a book envelope for odds and ends like bookmarks, Coaching Sheet, etc.  I also gave each student a clothespin which they use to sign up for Listening Centers.

Reading Nooks

I chose 28 "nooks"  in my classroom and posted them as you see here.  Each nook has a clothespin with a student number clipped to it.  This is that student's nook for the week.  These nooks are "earned" based upon responsibility during Daily 5 based on their completed Checklists which are turned in at the end of each week.  Therefore, these rotate on a weekly basis.

Daily 5 Checklists

Students have these with them all week during RW.  If they complete the grey boxes by Friday, they have earned their Reading Nook for the following week.

Noise Monitoring

Bouncy Balls- Neave Interactive 

(I keep this up for most of RW and the students really take this seriously!)

I look forward to hearing from you about Daily 5 and stay tuned for more of my Daily 5 series!