Loving Daily 5

This is the main section of my library.  We have the CAFE menu in its beginning stage next to our morning routines.  Every morning we begin with counting the days we have been in school using and hundreds/tens/ones chart, then we do the calendar, a poem and practice the Wilson alphabet.  Then we have a read aloud where we review CAFE strategies before we go to our first Daily 5 session.

 I am loving Daily 5.  This is my first year doing it and I cannot tell you how much I love it.  We spent the first 6 weeks teaching and modeling how to do Read to Self, Word Work and Writing.  We built our stamina with Read to Self first and my first graders responded so well to it.  I really think that student modeling (good, bad, good) was vital to our success.  They loved being able to choose spots around the room to read.  Some students leave for Basic skills, speech or ESL and they would be disappointed if they had to leave during Read to Self.  I have never had kids so sad about leaving the room.

We did Read to Self every day after our read aloud and it was wonderful.  We introduced the other sessions slowly, and there have been a few stumbling blocks, but it has been exciting.  I can't wait to meet with students individually and I hope that will happen during these next few weeks.  We are not doing all 5, and I hope to do 5 (modified to fit our needs).  I plan to do Read to Self, Word Work, Work on Writing, Read to Someone, and Computers.  Computers may include some listen to reading.

I will update more soon.  School has been very hectic but I am loving teaching this year more than I ever have before!!