Beginnings with Baer: Twin Tuesday: Daily 5

I have to admit, I was never been a fan of Tuesdays. Unlike Monday, it isn't a fresh start and unlike Thursday it isn't the eve of the weekend... it's just Tuesday! Those feelings have changed because now it is Twin Tuesday! A day very near and dear to my heart!! My twinnie and I were able to sit down and develop a schedule, which let's be serious helps out our OCD mindsets a great deal.

Today Molly and I are going to share with you a little insight into what Daily 5 looks like in our rooms. After you check out what it looks like in 1st grade, head over to Miss K's Little Rays to see how Molly and her little Rays rock Daily 5 in their room!

I truly can't remember when my school rolled out Daily 5. I remember we got the book and we read and hit it full force. I will admit as with many things, the priority of rolling it in every aspect somewhat fell to the wayside. This year, I wanted that to change and I wanted it to fit the needs of my classroom. I started by changing that time of the day to Reading Stations. It made more sense for what I am trying to accomplish. Don't get me wrong, "The Sisters" are smart ladies...so I am utilizing some of their techniques, as you will see!

Stations:

The first thing I did was really evaluate what my students need and the answers were help with sight words, rhyming, writing, and reading practice (at various levels of course). So our Reading Stations are the following:

Sight Words

Rhyming

Writing

Reading

Groupings:

I have 22 students, four of the students are taking part in a Fundations group with our Resource teacher, so that brings me to 18. The remaining 18 are grouped by DIBELS data, classroom observations, and sight word assessments. To make our groupings, more exciting...students will be grouped as sports. We will have the football team, the soccer team, the basketball team, the hockey team, and the softball team.

Timing:

We have 30 minutes to roll out Reading Stations! My plan is for each group to meet with me at least once, and do each station at least once. Timing will be an issue that is regulated frequently.

This year's class is great! They are well behaved and ready to learn, but they LOVE to talk! So building our stamina in "Reading" has been difficult, add in the heat schedule we had at the beginning of the year, followed by testing that had to be administered, and the occasional distruption in our day....we have finally made it to 10 minutes! We have learned how to pick good fit books and our book boxes have been personally decorated. Tomorrow, we will pick our books! Thursday, we will learn our the new activities for each station, and Tuesday we will be ready to roll!

**Disclaimer, we have been doing different activities to practice the skills of each station, but more as a whole group...Tuesday marks our Independence Day!

Check back in a week and see how Week One goes!!! I promise pictures!!!

That's the 1st grade way, now head over to Miss K's Little Ray's for a the Kinder way!!!