The Daily Five

Spotlight Series Part 5- The Daily 5

Greetings from the (rainy) beach!! I don't care though, I'd rather watch the rain here than out my living room window :) Blogging is so much better at the beach...remind me again why I live in the middle of my state?? Anyway moving onto my favorite part of my classroom routine... DAILY 5!!!

If you don't love the Daily 5 then you're doing it wrong!! Oh how much I LOVE my literacy block because of Daily 5! Now, I will say it is a pain process to set up and drill into those babies but boy is it completely worth it around October. I set up and modeled my Daily 5 just like the book says. I said what they said and did exactly what those two sisters told me to and IT WORKED!! My first graders were completely independent and happy during Daily 5. (even when I was progress monitoring and the session went longer than usual :)) Seriously, it is their favorite part of the day. They are devastated when we have an assembly or field trip and their precious daily 5 is shortened or skipped completely. (as a self proclaimed reading guru this makes my heart oh so happy). Because they are completely independent and occupied I can get so much accomplished without any behavior problems. And pair that with the fact they get to pick what they want to do this makes one happy first grader! Now finally onto what it looks like in our class :)

I have a confession: I didn't  teach mini lessons in between the different sessions this year...*insert shock or shame face here* The way our schedule worked out, it was best just to cram everything in from 8-9:25, have a quick snack break, and then do uninterrupted Daily 5 from 9:30-10:30. It also worked better for when I had a sub (which was rare, but did happen!)

We start the Daily 5 after our writing mini-lesson (more about that next week).  I call the students down to the carpet and put up our daily 5 filpchart so they know exactly what's about to happen. We start each session with an oral check-in. I mark their choices on an excel spreadsheet so there is no trickery going on! I mean I have some boys that would pick read to someone and listen to reading until the cows come home, so just to be safe I do all the record keeping :)

Here is how our daily 5 time frame breaks down:

Session 1 9:30-9:50

Session 2 9:50-10:10

Session 3 10:10-10:30

Now I know there are supposed to be five sessions total for each student to complete each component everyday, but lets face it...I just don't have the time. This schedule works best for me and my kiddos.  I pull my small groups during these session times and two days a week I have extra hands to pull groups as well... there are days when I get each group pulled and then have a whole session to organize or progress monitor!! (I will give you all those details when we get to the small group spotlight on July 29)

In addition to the normal five choices I also have an iPad choice which counts as Word Work (because the apps they use are phonics or grammar based) and BookFlix which counts as Listen to Reading. I love incorporating technology into every aspect of my classroom and this is any easy way to do that. If you need some app suggestions I will be giving those in a later post so check back! At 10:30 we clean up and head for the playground! That is my version of Daily 5. Link up with Kelli to share what you do! 

Phonics

Spotlight Series Part 4- Phonics

I hope everyone is having a wonderful summer! This week was crazy and I am just now sitting down at the computer...whew! I can't believe that the 4th has come and gone...sigh. Anyway moving on...

We do phonics right after calendar and morning meeting from 8:20-8:50. I start with their new sight words for the week and we go over them together and use each one in a sentence. Then I introduce (if it's Monday) their new phonics sound. We call it our "Phonics Focus" and I always start by saying "Our phonics focus this week is ...." So that they know what follows is important information :). On Monday I say the phonics focus and then on Tuesday-Friday I make them say it. We talk about the type of sound it is (long vowel, digraph, blend, diphthong, etc) because I think it is important that they know! We then brain storm a list of words with the sound. Depending on the sound we watch a BrainPopJr. video (I just love them and so do my kids!) After we talk about the sound then I dismiss the students back to their seats for a phonics activity. Sometimes it is just using the words in sentences, rainbow writing the words, or an activity that I found on TPT :) 

All of my word work centers for Daily 5 are focused on their phonics sound. So they practice them during Daily 5 at least 3 times a week. 

I touch on phonics again when I pull my groups to the back table for guided reading. We usually play a game with the words or say silly sentences like, "She sells seashells by the seashore". While we read we look for words that have the phonics sound we are working on. Most of my students are good and phonics so I usually only have a handful that need remedial and extra help with the phonics sounds. With those students I use the decodable readers that came with our reading series. Those texts focus solely on a particular phonics sound and are great for the struggling kiddos. 

That's phonics is our classroom! What does it look like in yours? Link up with Kelli over at Castles and Crayons to share!