Teaching With Style: Daily 5

Showing posts with label Daily 5. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Daily 5. Show all posts
Like many teachers, I'm all about PD and planning over the summer.  One subject that hasn't been going so well in my room for the past few years is math, and I want to do something about it! We use a state approved curriculum called Stepping Stones that is all online.  Students have workbooks, but there is not a teacher's guide or independent activities.  I can download daily lesson plans, and need to supplement extra independent activities outside of the workbooks.  It takes a lot of extra work for me to plan for math and I don't feel like my students really get all the concepts after I give the unit tests.

I've been a huge fan of the Daily 5 and CAFE frameworks for quite some time now and have utilized them in my reading instruction.  See my previous posts for a First Edition book study: Daily 5 book Study Chapter 1, Daily 5 Book Study Chapter 2, Im Lovin' Daily 5, Meeting The Sisters

I had heard about Math Daily 3 a few years ago and implemented a version of it, but then abandoned when I moved into my current position.  I'm not really sure why, but all I know is what I'm doing now doesn't make me feel good as a teacher.  I know I need to focus on improving my math instruction.

I get the weekly emails from The Sisters and saw that they offer online courses now.  I quickly signed up for the Math Daily 3 course and finally dug into my Second Edition book that contains information about implementing the Math Daily 3.  The course includes weekly videos, LMS platform where I can ask questions and connect with other participants, downloads, and a 3-month subscription to the Daily CAFE website.

From reading the new book, I have found some changes that the Sisters have made to their Daily 5 framework from the first book.  I love that these ladies are still in classrooms, working with real kids, and making improvements to their practices over the years.  Isn't that what successful teachers do?

There is a whole chapter dedicated to their core beliefs as teachers:
  1. Trust and Respect
  2. Community
  3. Choice
  4. Accountability
  5. Brain Research
  6. Transitions and Brain/Body Breaks
As a constructivist teacher, I believe in these principles as well.  They align so well with the work I do in arts-integration, OCDE Project GLAD (R), and also my recent training with Responsive Classrooms and their positive discipline techniques.  Its refreshing to feel so validated with my practices when reading professional books and literature!

The Sisters believe in a 10-step process to building stamina and holding students accountable for their choices during independent work time.  You can get a printable version of these steps on their website {here}. I love how reflection is built into this plan and how children clearly see and know what is expected of them.
  1. Identify What is to Be Taught
  2. Set a Purpose and Create a Sense of Urgency
  3. Record Desired Behaviors on an I-Chart
  4. Model Most-Desirable Behaviors
  5. Model Least-Desirable Behaviors, Then Most-Desirable
  6. Place Students Around the Room
  7. Practice and Build Stamina
  8. Stay Out of the Way
  9. use a Quiet Signal to Bring Students Back to the Gathering Place
  10. Conduct a Group Check-In; Ask "How Did It Go?"

So just like how teachers post reading strategies they've taught whole group on a CAFE board, teachers make a math board and post games they have taught whole group that students can choose from. It's important to organize materials so students can quickly and easily get everything they need to play the games.  

I have some Math Station Posters in my TpT store that would definitely work for Math Daily 3.  I actually just updated them to include Math Writing.  I had used them for station rotations, but they could be set up as a math board, too. 

I also have math tub labels for organizing your manipulatives.  I think visual labels are so important in lower grades, but also in upper grades for EL students who are still learning foundational English.  

How does the Math Daily 3 fit into your math instruction routines? 



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Today I'm joining some of my favorite bloggers for a fun Back to School Blog Hop! 


I'm here to tell you all about The Daily 5! 

The very first thing you should do is read the book! My first edition has dog ears and writing all over the margins.  It is a well loved book! This past year, those wonderful sisters came out with a second edition and it is all kinds of amazing! I still love the first book and think it's a great first read, but then you should read the second edition to learn how they have updated their thinking and also added in a Daily Math component. 


When I first started teaching, my team and I had students ability grouped for reading center time.  They stayed with their group and rotated through a series of paper pencil centers (sometimes there were manipulatives, too!) when I rang a bell every 12 minutes.  This worked well for me.  The students were compliant and working while my assistant and I read books with each group.  I saw every group for 12 minutes each day and did guided reading with leveled readers from our basal series while my assistant met with every group and worked on the weekly phonics skill with decodable Phonics Library books, also from our basal series.  

Then, I went back to college at night to earn my reading endorsement and I learned about Daily 5.  It incorporates choice, teaches independence, and students are engaged in activities that are actually helping them become better readers, not just quiet students.  

My first year doing D5, I kept my students in their ability groups and rotated them through Daily 5 centers.  I felt that this was a good transition for me.  I didn't change my whole structure, I just changed what my students were doing.  Then, as I read more, went to conferences, and talked with colleagues, I finally got rid of the rotations and recorded student choices on a clipboard.  

Then, I moved to Lanai and had a large class of 28 students.  These students were used to reading groups the old way I used to run them.  I tried to incorporate choice, but we had to stop D5 all the time because students were off task, talking, walking around the room.  No matter how many times I gathered them back to the carpet, went over our T-chart, and practiced the wrong vs. right way to do things, we just weren't building the stamina I needed in order to meet with groups.  So, I went back to the rotations.  

I made these cards so students knew what to do.  You can get them in my TpT store here.

Then last year, I had a much smaller class, only 17.  I decided to reintroduce choice.  I used Ladybug's Teacher Files freebie cards and made a new one for Respond to Reading.  You can grab those freebies from this blog post.

Students had a little piece of paper in their book boxes where they checked off which activity they chose.  They had to do them all throughout the week, so this helped for accountability.  I was also checking off their choices, so I knew if they were telling the truth about having done listening already :) 
Click the image to grab this FREEBIE!

This year, I've moved down to 1st grade and we've had a slow start.  We've already done our Read to Self t-chart and have 3 minutes of stamina built up.  We'll keep plugging along and then introduce Work on Writing next.  

So, my tip to you for starting with the Daily 5 - start small! Do what works for you! Don't feel like you have to change your entire reading instruction if you are not ready.  Change what your students are doing and get rid of all the worksheets that aren't helping them grow as readers.  Teach them how to independently read, write what they want to write, listen to fluent reading on audiobooks, and make words and work on spelling patterns.  These activities will teach them to be better readers.  When you are ready to add choice, do it! Students will learn to intrinsically work hard.  They will WANT to read! My students would tell me on a daily basis that reading was their favorite time of the day.  And by the end of the year, the novelty of the iPods had worn off and most of them just wanted to read their books.  It made my heart happy.

If you want to learn more about D5, a couple of summers ago I did a Daily 5 blog hop.  You can go to my TpT store to grab a bookmark with urls of all the blog posts and also pick up a stamina chart.  And I know the awesome bloggers at Freebielicious did a blog hop this summer for the second edition.  You can start at A Differentiated Kindergarten.

And now, head on over to Miss Squirrel's blog to find out her Back to School tip and how she sets up community supplies! 

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I'm linking up with First Grade in Foxwell Forest today to talk to you about the Daily 5!  This month's linky is all about word work.

If you are new to The Daily Five, make sure to get the book and read it first.  These blog hops are great for getting ideas of how teachers implement the structure in their rooms, but without the foundations that are explained in the book, you may get confused.  The book is short and is an easy read.  You won't regret it!

On to Word Work!

Like I shared last week, I use Ladybug's Teacher Files free Daily 5 choice signs.  When I call student names off my list to see which choice they want, almost all of them look at the signs to help them make a decision.  I am so glad I put them up! 

In my old school in Portland, my classroom had this big shelf unit.  The bottom cubbies were full of word work activities.

The kids who chose Word Work would choose their materials and practice making their weekly spelling words.  The available materials were:
  • Magnetic letters
  • Bend-a-roos (like wiki sticks)
  • Letter stamps
  • Black beans
The thing I did not like about this set up was that these activities were very open, so my large class (33) or third graders would often get off task and end up playing with the materials.  And since there was not a recording sheet or anything to turn in, I didn't feel that there was urgency to complete the task.

Last year I decided to make my Word Work activities a bit more intentional and less open ended.  I bought 3 shallow tubs from the dollar section at Target, then made some chalkboard labels with contact paper (get the DIY tutorial here).
Via Classroom DIY

I decided to have 3 centers up for 2 weeks each.  I only allow 6 students to choose Word Work each day, just to keep the area as crazy-free as possible.  With 3 centers, there can be 2 kids per center each round.  With keeping the centers there for 2 weeks, this ensures that each kid does each activity a couple of times.  

The activities I use are usually from my blogging friends.  Sometimes they are freebies, sometimes parts of paid products.  Sometimes they go with the phonics skill we are working on, and sometimes they have a comprehension component.  I don't just stick to words, I use Word Work to kind of encompass any reading skill that my kids as a whole need to work on.  

Right now, I am using my Halloween Compound Words.  This addresses standard L.2.4d.

The Bubbly Blonde's vowel center that is a part of her It's Birthday Time literacy center pack.  This addresses standard RF.2.3a.

And Surfin' Through Second's main idea center that is a part of her Sunshine and Rainbows literacy pack.  It addresses standard RL.2.2.


I'd love to hear how you have adapted Word Work to make it useful for you and your students!



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This past weekend, I met up with some other fabulous Hawaiian bloggers and went to a conference put on by the Ka Hui Heluhelu Hawaii Council of Teachers of English and saw the Two Sisters!  It was so exciting!! 

From left to right: Gail Boushey, Courtney from Teaching In Paradise, Tonya from Tonya's Treats for Teachers, Corinna from Surfin Through Second, Me!, Angelia from Extra Special Teaching, and Joan Moser.  We had such a blast and learned so much!

I even got a teacher hat that I can wear all the time with our Hawaii Council of Teachers of English logo!  Cute, huh?  My "teacher hat" may never come off - watch out naughty kids in the grocery store! ;)

The conference focused on The CAFE Book: Engaging All Students in Daily Literary Assessment and Instruction, but before you can really dive into your small group lessons and assessments, you need to set up what the rest of the kids are doing while you are meeting with those small groups.  That's where The Daily Five comes in.  Last summer, I was a part of a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade blog book study all about The Daily Five.



If you are interested in learning more about The Daily 5, you can start by downloading my bookmark, then going to my blog post as I introduce the study.

In my room, I follow the Daily 5 for Dummies plan that I found on Pro Teacher.  It is a great way to help you introduce everything at the beginning of the year.  It walks you through the anchor charts and stamina building.  As you build stamina, make sure to snag my free stamina chart, as well! 

Another awesome resource for introducing the Daily 5 is Lyndsey from A Year of Many Firsts' The Daily Five {Free Classroom Resources}.  She has posters, printables, and bookmarks to help make your journey with the Daily 5 easy and smooth.  I use her Student Tracking Cards every day for the students to see which activity they have done!

In my room, I use Ladybug's Teacher Files' Bright and Clear Daily 5 signs.  They are perfect for my space and my decor!  I like that the font is fun, but not too crazy and the design is bright, but clean. Here they are in my room:

You'll notice that I do not have Read to Someone up.  My students can buddy read as a What to Do When I Am Finished activity.  I updated my pack last year with poster sized versions, as well.  I made the big one this year and like it a lot better, since I can see it from across the room.  I attach it with little super-strong magnets and velcro dots, like Corinna from Surfin Through Second does.  My velcro dots are brown because those are the ones that were on clearance at the fabric store :)


Instead of Read to Someone, I decided to do Respond to Reading this year.  With permission from Ladybug's Teacher Files, I made a matching sign in both purple and blue so you can have one, too!  Just click one of them to download from Google Drive.

I plan to use composition books for the kids to write their responses in each day. Luckily, I got some for 50 cents each at Walmart this summer.  Inside the composition books, I plan to use Sara Soucy's Journals for Reading Response.


I'll have to teach my kids in the small groups about how to use them, then I think they'll be able to independently do them each day.  At the beginning of each group, I'll be able to quickly check each book to see if they were done and talk about what they wrote.  I hope this helps start great conversations about books in my groups, as I want to work more on comprehension and less on fluency as my kids move up the 2nd grade reading levels.

I got my first informal walkthrough today, and it was right when I was calling student names to tell me their choice for Round 1 of Daily 5.  The kids immediately started working, everyone knew what to do, and I got to work with my small group right away.  Needless to say, my new principal was floored and impressed.  So I have to give a huge THANK YOU to The Sisters for making me look so good :)

How is Daily 5 going in your room?
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I'm linking up with sweet Cara over at The First Grade Parade for Throwback Thursday!  So fun!  

 This is one of my highest traffic posts, and it was also one of my first posts!  I've had these crate seats for 2 years and they are still going strong!  I love that I used vinyl, so cleaning them is a snap.  The kids love them, too!  Enjoy!
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Originally posted January 2, 2012
I love me some Pinterest.  I love it so much and get so many ideas for craft projects (see them on my other blog Nicole's Crafting Adventure!) and also for classroom lessons and projects.  At the beginning of this school year, I made many things for my new classroom.  I moved rooms and moved up two grades, so I wanted my new space to be different and exciting.  This project was to not only look good, but create storage and a seating place for students to Read to Self during Daily 5 time - Crate seats! 

 I had a ton of crates that held student files, extra headphones for my listening center, books that tied into my reading themes, games and puzzles, and other random stuff. When I moved into my new 3rd grade room, the previous teachers (they job-shared) left me a collection of tennis ball containers full of Mad Minute math sheets for addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication. They were housed in plastic drawers that were meant to look like this, but the tennis ball containers were too tall for the frame. The teachers had simply removed the drawers and placed them on a shelf near the door. Well, once the janitor decided to re-arrange my shelves and took out a row (don't ask - I'm still really mad about it!) the drawers didn't really work in that area anymore. I needed a new place to house these containers. Enter Pinterest.  I found inspiration here and here.

Along with all these creative ideas, I set off in search of my supplies. First stop, Ikea. I wanted some heavier weight fabric. We used Ikea fabric to cover our coffee table ottoman, so I knew it would work well. Once I got to the store, I saw that they had a vinyl covered-type fabric - Lialotta in navy. I knew this would be perfect for spills and other types of general cleanup. I bought 1 yard to cover my 4 crates.


I then headed over to Home Depot with my crate in tow. I went straight for the scrap section and got a helpful guy to measure my crate and cut a piece of particle board (OSB to be exact) just a smidge (yes, the technical kind of "smidge") smaller than the crate to include the fabric when I placed the seat in the lip of the crate. The Home Depot dude was awesome. He cut the wood about 4 times and checked with me each time to make sure it was what I wanted. He then cut the remaining 3 pieces the same size. Total spent on wood, get this - $2.01. I may have brought up the fact that this project was for kids, you know, to help sway his generosity in how much that scrap wood cost! :)

Next step was to raid my mother-in-law's sewing room for some foam. She first found a piece that needed to be cut in half width-wise. I broke out her electric turkey knife and got to work. Let me tell you, when I was finally done, it looked terrible! Because the knife was shorter than the length of the foam, I had to measure and cut down one side, then measure and cut down the other side. There was still a piece in the middle that hadn't been cut, so I tried to cut it even. Long story short, I ended up with a VERY lumpy side to the foam that I was afraid wouldn't adhere to the wood correctly and since I wasn't using batting between the foam and the fabric, I wouldn't have anything to hide the lumpiness. (*In retrospect, if I would have cut the foam the size of the wood pieces first, I probably would have been able to cut it in half just fine with the turkey knife. You live and you learn! :) I nicely told her I was off to JoAnn's to buy thinner foam when lo and behold, she found a perfect piece in the closet! Yay to free foam that isn't lumpy!

I used the turkey knife to cut the foam the same size as the boards. I traced each wooden board on the foam with a sharpie and then labeled the foam side and wood side. This way when I glued it down, it would match up perfectly.


I used spray adhesive that was leftover from making our coffee table ottoman. I first sprayed the glue on the wood, then placed the foam on the wood, lining up the edges. I then pressed on the foam to help adhere it to the wood. Once I had all 4 pieces of wood completely glued and dried, I got to work stapling the fabric.


I used my husband's staple gun and just wrapped the fabric around the wood like a present. It was hard to make the staples go all the way into the wood since the foam made the wood move every time I stapled. If I held the staple gun at an angle, it seemed to help.
Cost Breakdown:
Crates - already had
Wood - $2.01
Fabric - $7.99
Spray adhesive - already had
foam - got from my mother-in-law
staples and a staple gun - already had

Total: $10 even!

And a shot of my carpet area, with the crates, my new carpet chair, a portion of my CAFE board, and the calendar area (We use Bridges in Mathematics).
Whenever I want to do Mad Minute, it is so easy to grab the tennis ball container from the crates. I might make laminated signs so I know which crate is addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.   But for now, I am loving this new addition to my classroom, pun intended!


Here is one of my students sitting on a crate, showing us a hand motion for the CAFE strategy "Cross Checking". You can also see the tennis ball containers inside the crate. They fit perfectly!


What are some creative organization you have used in your classroom?  What would you put in your crate seats if you made them?
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I love literacy centers or the Daily 5 for students while I'm teaching guided reading.  One of my staple centers is a listening center.  It has evolved quite a bit over the years.

I started out with about 5 books and tapes that I got from Scholastic book orders.  I had one big tape player with multiple headphone jacks, so I had to hunt down a couple more copies of the books so an entire group of students could listen to one story all together.  I struggled with holding kids accountable and would have them fill out a response sheet, but they often didn't have time to finish before they had to move on to their next center.

I then moved to a new school and taught kindergarten - there was no way my 32 kindergarteners could handle a listening center at the beginning of the year.  I got a Donorschoose project for some Leap Pad interactive books and those were helpful for the next couple of years while my tapes collected dust.



I then moved back to first grade and wanted to bring out the tapes again.  There were some old walkmans in storage at my school that had been used for the Read Naturally program.  The great thing about walkmans is students can listen to the books individually, not with a partner.  They are more on task and can choose books that interest them.  The bad thing about walkmans is they eat up batteries.  I got a new Donorschoose project together for rechargeable batteries and I was set!

The walkmans and rechargeable batteries have been kickin' it for 4 years, now!  But the problem is, the walkmans are starting to break, the tapes are starting to wear out, and I'm starting to get annoyed that kids bring me their walkman everyday and say, "It doesn't work" and they only needed to turn around the tape!  So, I decided to bring my listening center to the 21st century with iPod nanos!

Messy listening center!
Enter Donorschoose, once again.  I have an old pink iPod nano, and two of my friends sent me their old nanos that they don't want.  That gives me 3 choices for kids.  My reading groups have 5 or 6 kids, so I wrote another Donorschoose project for 2 more nanos.  I figured that I might be able to find one more, or two kids can share with a headphone splitter.

Now, to get the books on tape to transfer to audio files for the computer.  I knew it could be done, but I wasn't sure how.  Google to the rescue!  I found that a free program for audio recording and editing, Audacity, could do it for me!  I only needed to buy one, cheap cord: a 3.5 mm stereo cable.


Audacity has a great help wiki (looks like wikipedia!) and the detailed instructions were so easy to follow.  You can find those here.


The plan is to upload 5 books on each iPod and change those out monthly.  Each iPod is a different color, so kids will know which one they have used.  If they get the pink one twice, they can just listen to another book, or *gasp* listen to a book again.  I even hope to start recording students reading some books and having those audio files available.  I can record them reading on my iPhone, or I have a mini microphone for my iPod touch.

And what to do with all those tapes??  Give them to the kids of course!  I'll keep the books, but let the kids take home a tape each.  Maybe they can even win a walkman!  I'm excited I won't have as much to physically store with this new system.

To kick off my new listening center, I decided to make my reading center cards available on Teachers Pay Teachers!  Click the photo below to go check them out!


Here are the cards in my chart.  The hanging sheet show what the centers are for each day of the week. My groups are just handwritten on strips of paper because I was in a hurry, but now that my new ink cartridge finally arrived in the mail. I can print out prettier ones (#islandproblems).

Do you use a listening center?  How do you display your center info for kids?

I'm linking up with Katie from Queen of the First Grade Jungle's Technology Tuesday!

Also with Fern's Thursday's Tech Tips for Teachers!
Fern Smith's Thursday's Tech Tips for Teachers

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I'm back with my thoughts from chapter two of The Daily 5: Fostering Literacy Independence in The Elementary Grades.  First off, I would like to say that these are entirely my opinions and not that of the 2 Sisters or their publisher Stenhouse.  :)  Chapter two is all about the "why" of the Daily 5 model.  The Sisters list these as their core foundations:
  • trusting students
  • providing choice
  • nurturing community
  • creating a sense of urgency
  • building stamina
  • staying out of students' way
Trusting Students
The Sisters say that trusting students is one of the most important aspects of what makes the Daily 5 work.  First you have to explicitly teach students what to do, then you need to trust them to actually do it.  During the Daily 5, teachers should be conferring with students, meeting with groups, or doing assessments.  You have to trust that the other students are being responsible so you can get your important work done, too.  Without trust, the system doesn't work.

Providing Choice
I completely agree with the Sisters when they say that choice is a huge motivational factor for students. I love their quote, "Choice is highly motivational and puts children in charge of their learning" (pg 20). It is so true that if you have some say over which activities you get to choose, you will do them better.  If I got to choose which household chores to do, I would not choose folding laundry, but I would empty that dishwasher with wild abandon!  Just kidding, but you get the idea...

Nurturing Community
Students need to feel safe and secure in any classroom in order to thrive.  This is especially important in a Daily 5 classroom, since we are asking students to be so independent and take risks each day in their learning.  By setting the tone that we are all here to become better readers and that we can only get there by helping each other, students will not only feel safe and supported, they will feel comfortable enough to actually grow and learn.

Creating a Sense of Urgency
By teaching students why we do the things we do, they will understand and "buy-in" to what we are asking them to do.  By teaching them that we do the Daily 5 activities to become better readers, they can internalize that message and make better goals for themselves.  

Building Stamina
The Sisters think of increasing minutes of independent reading and writing the same as building your body's endurance as you work out.  You have to start out small and work your way up.  In the beginning of the year, that is how they get their students to stay on task while they are working with small groups and individual students.  They start by practicing reading to self for a minute.  If everyone can do it, they up it to two, and on up until how ever long that round goes for.  We'll go more in depth in this strategy when we talk about Read to Self, but you get the picture.  Start small and work your way up until you get to the desired time: build your reading stamina!

Staying out of Students' Way
The last foundation to the model is once students get going on their work, don't bug them!  If you walk around and monitor, encourage, or even reprimand, they will depend on you to do that.  If you teach them so well how to be independent without your help, then they will actually do it even when you are not there!  That is the goal, right?  I've heard subs say that they can tell a good teacher by how well the students stay in the classroom routine while the teacher is away.  I think that is one of the best compliments!
Head on over to my TpT store and pick up a Stamina freebie.  You can use it as you are building up your class' independent minutes next fall, or even with an individual student who needs more reminders later on in the year.

So, this week, think about how you can implement these foundations into your reading instruction.  Which aspects do you already do?  Which ones do you want to work on more?  Are there any that you don't agree with?

Next week we'll hop over to Mrs. Freshwater's Class and Thinking Outloud for chapter three.  Start thinking about your framing questions:
  1. What "rings true for you" in this chapter?
  2. How are your students progressing with picking appropriate books?
  3. What (if anything) could help improve the processes from this chapter in your classroom?
I'm linking up with TBA, too!

Freebie Fridays


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