Meeting The Sisters {And a FREEBIE!}

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?