Five for Friday ~ Literacy Edition

It's Friday, and I am actually posting my Five for Friday!  We had a very busy week (only one two-hour delay), and got a lot accomplished.  My Kinders are working very hard on becoming readers & writers.  It's sooo exciting to watch their enthusiasm and excitement!  It's hard to believe how far they have come in a few short months...

How do you run your Literacy Stations?  Do you do Guided Reading, Reading Workshop, Daily 5, or something else?  Last year the primary teachers did a book study on Daily 5 and began dabbling in it.  Some of the teachers have taken the plunge and use D5 as their entire Literacy Block, while others are using bits and pieces.  I guess I fall somewhere in the middle.  I really like the idea of giving students choice ~ it just makes sense that the kids will practice and learn from activities that interest them, but I still want to be sure that certain activities are done by everyone.

Our Literacy Block is actually broken up by recess & a special.  After our Calendar Time, we do our whole group literacy activities ~ read aloud comprehension activities, partner & seat work (for about 32 minutes).  Once we are back from our morning special, we break into five small groups: my table, word work, writing, listening, & Mrs. S's table.  The students rotate through these stations, completing one per day.  There is an assigned activity at each station that must be completed.  Once the activity is completed, the Kinders have several other activities that they may choose to do.  I work with Strategy Groups during this time.  Mrs. S. works with her group, progress monitors for mClass, or works with students on specific skills. We work in our Literacy Stations for about 20 - 25 minutes.

This time then morphs into our Daily 5 time (about 30 - 35 minutes).  After gathering on the carpet, the students choose their first rotation activity while I continue to work with students at my table.  We only have time for two rotations before lunch.  I give the kids about 5 - 10 minutes after lunch to finish anything that they didn't get done.  Those kiddos who are finished with everything get to choose another D5 activity.

In the spirit of all things Literacy, here are my five.

I have posted about my table & how much I love it, so you may have seen pictures of it before...  I am pretty happy with myself this year because of how neat & organized it is!  The 31 Fold & File is sitting on top of a hand-me-down 3 drawer storage unit.  It was my daughter's traveling "dresser" for her horse show necessities!  She hasn't competed in a horse show for a while & it was just sitting around, so I snagged it for storing my guided reading materials.  (The top is a little stained from spending so much time in a dusty horse barn, but that just adds to its character!)  The baskets are from Target's Dollar Spot & hold games and materials for small group instruction.

Mrs. S's table.  The insert on the right shows this week's required activity & the one on the left shows choice activities.  The required activities this week come from my new Animal Themed Literacy set.  Click HERE to purchase.

 The kids work at this table during our Literacy Stations.  The required activity is on the left, choices on right.

This fabulous cabinet was purchased for my D5 word work activities last spring.  I love it!  The kids can grab a bin, go to their work area, and start practicing working on words.  The green & yellow tubs mostly have things from The Mailbox (file folder games, etc.)  The blue tubs & those on top hold paper & pencil type activities.  Some of the activities are from the fabulous Sight Words Stations set I recently purchased on TpT from Sharing Kindergarten.

 My Writing Station is a popular spot in the room.  On the counter are bins of activities, writing binders, white boards (in purple bin), and writing paper.  The sentence writing activity shown in the inset is what is required this week.  Once the Kinders are finished, they may work in one of the tubs or write the room.

 My kids are serious Write the Room Junkies!  I have a little table dedicated to the tools needed to write the room ~ a basket of sparkly star shaped glasses, fancy pencils & twist crayons, clipboards, and files of Write the Room pages.  Because of the love my kids have for writing the room, I leave the cards up for a month so they can write and write again.  I like to put the cards in about the same area so that the kiddos can easily find them.  The insert shows the cluster of word cards above the sink.  (Hibernation word cards HERE. Penguin word cards HERE, Groundhog word cards HERE, Valentine CVC spelling cards HERE, Rainbow math card HERE.

Our classroom library is situated in the center of our room.  I like to have books be the focal point of the room.  This space is where the word work tubs are housed, too.  It is another popular spot in the room.

This is just another little area where the kids can work.  Several years ago my daughter was moving into an apartment down at Purdue & someone else was moving out.  He offered her this little desk ~ she didn't want it, but knew I would.  My husband cut the legs down to size.


And, finally I want to share a story one of my little cuties wrote.  On Wednesday she sat in the Writing Station & announced that she was going to write a book for me to read to my granddaughters.  She did this completely on her own!

Thanks for sticking with me!  Now it's your turn to link up your Five for Friday over at Doodle Bugs!