It's time for our Daily 5 Chapter 7 Summer Book Study! This chapter is all about when you should begin the next Daily 5 choice. The Sisters recommend the following:
- Intermediate Grades: 12-14 minutes of stamina
- Primary Grades: 10-12 minutes of stamina
- Kindergarten: 7-8 minutes of Stamina
The Sisters recommend beginning with Work on Writing as the second Daily 5 choice. Current research supports writing every day, and Daily 5 gives students the time they need to write daily. Students may work on their Writer's Workshop pieces, or they may do another type of writing. I plan to have my students work on a combination of assigned writing and Mel D's Ultimate Writing Station for Work on Writing. It gives tons of engaging student-friendly writing choices, such as letter, memo, song, poem, and email writing! My past students have loved it! Click on the picture to check it out!
I plan to launch Work on Writing as suggested, by discussing why it's so important to write and the expectations for Work on Writing time. Together we will create an I-chart for Work on Writing, students will model and demonstrate the appropriate behaviors and the undesirable behaviors. Basically, we will be following the same steps we used for Read to Self and the 10 Steps to Teaching Independence described in chapter 3. Students will practice and build stamina, and Work on Writing ends when stamina is broken.
I plan to introduce choice after students have built their stamina to 12 minutes. Students should be very motivated and excited at this point to get to choose what Daily 5 activity they do next!
Check-In is suggested, and should only take a few minutes to do. You can call each student and ask which choice they are starting with. I can see this helping the students to stay focused and accountable. I am not sure if I am going to use The Cafe Book or my own version of small group instruction while students are working independently, but I will also be checking in with my small group during D5 time to make sure they are working on what they need to be focusing on.After the foundation lessons have been taught, and Daily 5 has been practiced, it's time for Read to Someone. Hopefully, if I've followed the 10 Steps to Teaching Independence, my students will rise to the occasion and stay focused and on task during Read to Someone. Honestly, this is the Daily 5 choice I am most nervous about implementing!
The Coach's Playlist below was a freebie I shared last week, but I'm adding it this week in case you missed it. I plan to give these to the pairs who are working on Read to Someone. Click on the pictures and grab a copy if you like!
For this choice, I may have my students go to online story sites and use their headphones with their tablets. I might have to wait until later in the year to introduce Listen to Reading until my students have been properly trained on how to use their devices. I can see how students can stay very focused during Listen to Reading.
I know Word Work will be most of my students' favorite choice! I'm planning to store some of the activities in my Big Lots cart below. I shared this picture and the freebie labels that go inside it last week, but wanted to share again in case you missed it.
I have lots of Word Work activities already in place. Here are a few of them:
- Magnetic Letters and serving trays from Dollar Tree
- Foam Letters- I am going to have the kids trace them onto their paper, not stick them on, so we can reuse them.
- Spelling Stamping-I have TONS of stamps from my scrapbooking days!
- Crossword Puzzles
- Boggle
- Spelling City on the tablets
- Spelling Illustrations
- Digital White Board Spelling
- Letters for Learning- I love this set from Tara at 4th Grade Frolics! Check out her Gumball Spelling too!
- Vocabulary Four Square Sheets (See below- my second graders did these last year. It's a freebie in my store.
It's suggested to do a Word Work rotation for only 10 minutes because the student behavior can turn from focused working to play. I might see how it goes and then decide how long the students do Word Work. After Word Work, they move onto either Work on Writing or Read to Self. The important thing is to make sure you are teaching the 10 Steps to Teaching Independence and how to properly take out and return the Word Work materials.
Well, there you have it! I hope the D5 training period in my classroom goes this smoothly! If not, I guess I will just have to work out the kinks!
Be sure to check back on Saturday when we will be discussing Chapter 8 which is Math D3!
Also be sure to visit the other bloggers who have linked up. A few of them have been using Daily 5 for years, so they are the real experts!
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