Daily 5 signs

I made these signs for my classroom but thought I would upload them for anyone else that wants to use them. I also have CAFE strategy cards but I'm having trouble getting them to upload correctly into Google images. I'll post those as soon as I figure it out. Just click on the imagine and it will take you to the document.  Enjoy!

It's Finished!!!

We had Meet the Teacher night Friday and it was a huge success! I always love having time before the first day of school to meet my new kiddos and parents. Everyone was thrilled with the classroom and very eager to start school on Monday. I managed to snap some pictures of my room before the first students walked in. I love how the room came together!

This is the view of the tables with the balloons, notebooks, and other items the kids pick up at meet the teacher night. The balloons have the student's names written on them.

These are pictures of my classroom library. I have a very large library! The bulletin board will be used for our monthly author study.

My butterfly garden and seating in front of the garden.

Calendar and meeting area with new crate seats!

Monarch of the Week Bulletin Board

CAFE and Daily 5 Board

Another nook in my library that I'll use for my music learning lab

Birthday board, book box shelves and learning lab chart.

Reading table and teacher area. Interesting word boardis in the background.

Homeworkopoly and shelf for homework binders.

Word wall and sink area. The colors are really washed out!

School starts tomorrow. I have no idea where the summer went; but I'm ready to start another fantastic year in second grade!

Cute and Organized!

Today I finished my Daily 5 book box display. I have always wanted to use book boxes but couldn't justify the expense of magazine file boxes. The cheapest I've seen them was $2.50 each. Times that by 26 kiddos and well, you get the idea. So you can imagine my excitement when I found these cuties in the Target dollar spot. Yay!! I picked up 30 of them and ran back to school eager to put them in their chosen spots. I decided to organize them all in a pattern because it's prettier that way and I love me a pretty display! BUT, you all know what happens as soon as the kiddos get a hold of them. They will be shoved back onto the shelf in any old order. To keep them in their place I labeled the shelf with an identical name tag that's on the book box. Now all the kiddos have to do is find their name and my pretty display will stay all year long!

Working With Words

The last component of Daily 5 that the kids learned was Working With Words. Each week the kids have 10 spelling words and 2 challenge words. These words are usually sight words and word family words that they need to know for both reading and writing. We use these words for our word work each week. The students choose from a list of several word activities that they can do to practice their words.

The list is growing but here are a few;

Stamps- The kids use letter stamps to print the words on paper.

White Boards- The kids use white boards to write the words. They can practice writing them over and over or they can use blue for consonants and red for vowels.

Rainbow Writing- The spelling words are written on paper in a variety of colors.

Magnetic Letters- The words are spelled on the easel whiteboard using magnetic letters.

Playdough- The letters for each word or rolled out and formed using playdough.

We also have letter beads, string words, and a scrambled egg word activity that we use. Word Work has quickly become a favorite Daily 5 component of many of the kids in the room!

Read to Someone

Partner reading can be a very useful reading tool if used the right way. I will admit that up to this year, I have always been a little hesitant to have kids partner read because 9 times out of 10, one partner is goofing off while the other is reading. Or, they both end up playing around.

Much like all of the other components of Daily 5, with proper training, partner reading can be fun and enjoyable.  The children are taught that there are several ways that they can read together. The first video that you will see shows a pair of children demonstrating "I Read, You Read". With this method, one child leads the reading while the second child echos. Then they both check for understanding (this particular pair forgot to check for understanding). This method is great for building fluency, especially if the lead student is a fluent reader.

The second video shows another method of paired reading called "2 different books". This strategy is great for kids on different levels because they each read from their own book. The first student reads a page of his/her book while the second listens and then checks for understanding. Then the second student reads from his/her book while the first listens and checks for understanding. The two girls in the second video illustrate this method perfectly!

Practice Makes Perfect!

Like anything worth learning and doing, it takes practice to get better. This is especially true with reading.

I can teach strategies, pull guided reading groups to reinforce and observe how children use these strategies, and meet with kids one-on-one to give them reading goals.

But, if kids don't spend a significant amount of time practicing on their own, it is quite difficult for them to make significant gains.

I have learned many things with experience. One important thing that I have learned is that you can't expect beginning of the year second graders to walk in on day one and read quietly for 20-30 minutes. They need time and direction on how to build their reading stamina.

We began Read to Self on the second day of school with a 3 minute block of time. We are now up to 15 minutes. We have discussed what behaviors are necessary to maximize our Read to Self time. The students came up with the following:

• Find a quiet place to read and stay there
• Read the whole time (no pretend reading)
• Don't talk or make noises that will distract others
• Get started quickly

As soon as I observe a behavior that goes against those listed above, I stop the children and bring them back to the meeting area. We then discuss what we need to do to fix the problem for the next time. This process can be slow and tedious, but the children learn that reading time is valuable and we must take it seriously. This video clip is a quick peek inside our Read to Self time. I love how engaged all of the kids are with their reading!

Believe it or not, it takes them only about 20 seconds to choose their own spot and begin. What amazing kiddos!