Daily 5 Start Up!

As I had mentioned in an earlier post, the primary teachers in my school are doing a book study on The Daily 5.  In this post I asked for a "little help" getting started.  Reader Katie L. kindly suggested that I check out the book study that was hosted this past summer by Live, Love, Laugh Everyday in Kindergarten.  This book study was a great resource!  Even though most of the participants most likely have their Daily 5 routines well into place, the linky is still active, so I thought I'd join up!  (Better late than never -right?)

Chapter 3 Linky Thoughts:

1. Establish a gathering place for brain and body breaks.  We have a large area where the kids sit on little carpet samples for lessons as well as stories, exercises, and brain break activities.

2. Developing the concept of "good fit" books. I plan to do the shoe lesson from the book.  My husband wears size 15 shoes!  I can just imagine how funny I will look clomping around in his boats!  I also saw that the book Dog in Boots was used to help further the concept of "good fit"on a few blog posts.  I have that book! 

 
3. Create anchor charts with students.  I have a large picture chart of the I-Chart procedures hanging near our meeting area.  I have so much stuff around my room, that I will need to think about just where to put any new anchor charts I make.  (Maybe take down some other bulletin boards that are sort of - just hanging around...)

 
4. Short, repeated intervals of independent practice and setting up book boxes.  My kids are pros at working in pairs and small groups - we worked on building stamina for partner & stations work at the beginning of the year.  Even though I wasn't doing the D5, I had read the book a couple of summers ago and really liked the behavior aspect of it.  I think that my Kinders will take to working with The Daily 5 framework pretty quickly.  

Shortly after our book study began, my Kinder partners and I wished for book browsing racks and bins.  And, our wish came true!  Even in these times of tight budgets, we were able to get the equipment needed!

Our colorful book bins!  We ordered six sets of one dozen bins from Really Good Stuff and divvied them up so that we have a rainbow of bins!  (Well, not actually a true rainbow as one of my cuties pointed out: "Pink is not in the rainbow.  And, there are no red bins!"  Our art teacher will be so proud!) 

 We each got one of these wonderful book racks! (Nasco) I began sorting books into it last week, and hope to get everything organized by the end of this week.  (As you can tell from the bin picture, I need to do some major organizing of my entire library!)
 
5. Calm Signals and check in procedures.  For a calm signal I have a pretty wind chime hanging above my easel that was a gift from a student several years ago.  It is just loud enough to get their attention, but not as loud as the bell used to settle them.  As for the check in pprocedures - I'm not quite sure yet.  I still need to look into how I'm going to restructure my day to fit in some (not all this year, I fear) of the D5 into my schedule.  We are already very set in our ways, and I don't want to totally change our routine.  (Two hour delays set them into a tizzy!  lol)

6. Using the correct model/incorrect model approach for demonstrating appropriate behaviors. We practiced the correct/incorrect model when we worked on building stamina a long time ago, so I do want to revisit this with our book bins!

Trial run of Read to Self!  The kids were excited to try out their new bins!  I arranged the bins into what I thought was a pleasing "rainbow" of colors, and assigned each bin a number.  Using our class roster, I simple told each student which bin was theirs.  There were a few snickers when a boy was assigned a pink bin.  As I began to explain that it didn't matter what color they got, a little boy piped up, "It doesn't matter what color your tub is.  What matters is the books inside it!"  YAY!