Daily 5 Book Study - Chapter 7 and a Freebie

Well, friends, after seven wonderful, collaborative weeks together, our book study has come to an end. I want to thank Kimberly from Funky First Grade Fun for hosting Chapter 7: Putting it All Together and Troubleshooting.

I want to start off by sharing this quote which "The Sisters" believe to be the "heart of choice: knowing the expectations, possessing the skills to meet them, being trusted to carry them out, and taking responsibility to do so"...isn't that what WE want from our administrators?

We know our grade level standards, have earned educational degrees in our content areas, maintain classroom structure and guidance for our students, and are held accountable so that our students succeed. We are trusted to use quality, yet challenging teaching materials as long as we follow our state-mandated curriculum. We have choice...I'm sorry if that sound soapboxish...but, it's something for me to keep in mind...

A few lingering questions I have:
I'm not sure how transient your school population is, but I had a revolving door last year...my class list did not become stable until April. How do you transition your new students to the Daily 5 structure? Do you choose partners for awhile? Do you do one-on-one mini-lessons? Since the newbies probably missed the mini-lessons and good/ not good model, I would love to hear your suggestions!

Fortunately or unfortunately, (it depends on how you look at it) I have not have any parent inquiries as to why they do not have daily worksheets that go home for literacy...yet. My student have journals, word work folders, work on writing folders, etc. to "show" their work. I just want to be proactive and not reactive if there ever was a question from a parent/ administrator. So, I found this gem from Bethany, a parent letter that informs them not only to what our students are doing during the Daily 5, but also ways they can support these same literacy activities at home:

get here

Here's a lil' something I created to assist those students that need a little more help once everyone has selected their literacy choice...and you are right in the middle of your small group lesson...and you do not want to be disturbed. Maybe they forgot how to access a website, or the volume is not right on their headphones, or they can't find the book that they were reading yesterday...enter Tech Support.

You can print these out (I would laminate them and print on card stock), punch a hole and use yarn or make a slit for a badge clip and your "tech helpers" can wear these to identify themselves to their peers.

click here to get them

Of course, I made these printer and classroom-theme friendly, but I also made some that match my new pirate theme :)

These are part of my larger packet, The Daily 5 I Can...Literacy Choice Picture Displays and More, that I have been adding to throughout our book study. I would love for you to take the time to give me your feedback if you download it on TpT :)

Over the course of our book study, I hope you were able to glean something useful for your classroom, gain a better understanding of implementing the five literacy choices, and realize that your students will succeed because they have a wonderful teacher guiding them...YOU!

As always, I welcome your questions, comments, and suggestions :)

If you want to read about the previous chapters, you can find those here: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, and Chapter 6.

Daily 5 Book Study - Chapter 6 and a Freebie

Hey, friends...we are almost at the end of our Daily 5 book study...this week we are onto Chapter 6: Work on Writing and Word Work. A huge thanks to Deb from Fabulously First for hosting :)

Work on Writing

What I had my students use last year was a folder to keep their writing in during Work on Writing. (For Writer's Workshop, they used a draft book.) We started out with this basic format of paper:

get paper from C&C Teach First here

As my students built up their stamina, I would add different styles of writing paper to keep it fun...and to keep them interested...because we did Writer's Workshop almost every.single.day. By the end of the year, most of my kiddos were filling up two pages of paper that looked like this:

also from C&C Teach First

My only source of conflict (such a harsh word) is that as another bribe incentive for choosing Work on Writing, I allowed my students to use colored pencils and crayons...which was a big no-no during Writing Workshop...please don't throw virtual things at me...But now, after reading In Pictures and In Words by Katie Wood Ray, I am now in a quandary...she emphasizes that illustration work is just as important as the writing and therefore colored pencils, crayons, and markers should be allowed during the writing process????

What do you do in your classroom? Am I way over-thinking this? You know how it is...some kiddos can get sooo caught up in "coloring" their pictures...please share how you handle this in Writer's Workshop/ Work on Writing...

Word Work (Work on Words)

One of the activities my kiddos l-o-v-e-d was using dry-erase boards during Word Work. My only rule for using the dry-erase boards (I know I have so many rules), is that they had to be able to read the words they wrote down. It wasn't meaningful if they were only writing down letters without any meaning attached to them.

Then they progressed to writing sentences using words they found around the room...then adding correct capitalization and punctuation. It was so much easier for them to "see" the "end" of their sentence versus putting a period at the end of every line...you know what I'm talking about :)

They also had cardboard and magnetic letters to manipulate and spell words, but the dry-erase boards were the biggest hit. I have discovered so many fabulous resources on Pinterest this summer for Word Work that I can't wait to use with my kiddos! Here are a couple of my favs because I'm all about recycling and easy:

from Pink and Green Mama

from The Activity Mom

And now onto the freebie...I created these as covers for my students' Work on Writing folders. These could also be used for Work on Words folders (W.O.W folders). 

get yours here

 
The black and red matches my pirate theme, but they are also available in black and white so you can have your students color these in or they could be printed on colored paper to match your theme.


Frames by Tales from Outside the Classroom and font by Kevin and Amanda.

I would love to hear how you plan to use them in your classroom :)

What successes/ challenges have you had with implementing Work on Writing or Word Work?

Daily 5 Book Study - Chapter 4 and a Freebie

Hi, friends...had this been published on the day it was supposed to be, the chapter picture may have been a wee bit more meaningful...but, alas...here I am...with Chapter 4: Read-to-Self. We have layed the groundwork and now we can get started!

But, first a big thank you to our hostesses Jennifer from First Grade Blue Skies and Laura from Tattling to the Teacher!

The basic introduction for our kiddos is the Three Ways to Read a Book:

find the rest of Janaye's packet here

What I think will be a little bit easier for me to explain (in a more meaningful way) is "reading the pictures" due to the other book study that I'm participating in: In Pictures and In Words by Katie Wood Ray. What I have read so far helps me understand that the illustrations have been as carefully chosen as the words the author has used. I needed to help my kiddos "read" the pictures as deliberate decisions and not look just look at them as funny pictures or splashes of color...which is also really cool to look at, though...

As I reread this chapter, I found myself honing in on key phrases that will help make this a seamless part of our classroom culture:

* multiple short practice sessions, with repetition and discussion throughout the first weeks of school (p. 46)
* the tone for the entire year is established during the early weeks of school (p. 47)

It's simple, right? Discussion, model, practice, check-in, discussion, stamina, perfection...right?! Well, ok, not perfection, but pretty close...what I mean is that once we put into place our expectations and explain why it is important to Read to Self, using our I-charts, correct/ incorrect model, and check-in discussions, we should have a good foundation for all the other literacy tasks to come...

Here are some goodies I have found:
I like this Read to Self poster using the acronym RIGHT:

You can find the rest of Leslie's free posters here :)

I found this stamina graph and plan to use it this year. I like it because it shows progression or digression over days:

You can find the rest of Mrs. Magee's free stamina graphs here :)

The one little bitty part that I have struggled with is not making eye contact when they are building stamina and I am at my reading/ small group table. Usually the behavior is fixed once I give "the look" but does it take away from their self-monitoring? Please tell me you do the same thing :)

After some self-reflection and pondering, I have decided that my kiddos sometimes need more help knowing what the literacy activities are supposed to look like and sound like. So, I came up with these: The Daily 5 Literacy Choice Picture Displays. A mouthful, I know, but basically a way for students to show you their thinking and a way for you to display the correct behaviors as ongoing models.

get the rest of them here 

I will leave you with one more: "Your brain will be very busy when you are reading!" (p. 48) Don't you just love that quote?!

What will you do differently with implementing Read to Self this year than you have done in the past?

P.S. If this wasn't enough, or you just want need MORE, you can also find me guest posting at Tori's Teacher Tips...please come check it out!! That's right, double-duty, baby!!

ONE more thing...I have a winner for my 200 Facebook Followers and 100 Blog Followers Giveaway!!! Yes, there can only be one...Susan F...your goodies have been sent your way...enjoy!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Top Teachers' Blog Swap and Hop...I Have a Guest

Hey everyone! It's Heather (aka HoJo) from HoJo's Teaching Adventures. I'm so excited about the Top Teachers' Blog Swap and Hop! It's such a fun event where you're going to get some great ideas and maybe even a few freebies along the way!

Monica and I were brainstorming what you might like, and we decided you deserve a FREEBIE! So I'm going to keep this pretty short and sweet, but read on to see what you're getting...

I started creating Magic Squares this past November. Basically they are puzzles that match up "magically" (or perfectly) when put together correctly. Here's an example of one -

Students will get to practice 12 problems about a certain concept, like addition in the Magic Square above.

Here are some Magic Squares in action -

So now that I've told you about Magic Squares, I hope you are excited as I am about them! But - just in case you're not - it's time to give you a freebie! Maybe then you'll be convinced that this is a FUN educational tool that will have students begging for more.

Click on the picture below to get your FREE and EXCLUSIVE Blog Hop and Swap Magic Square 0-5 Addition FREEBIE!
There is one little catch with this freebie - it's only available for FREE until Saturday, July 7th at midnight CST. So make sure to download your copy before then!

Well, folks, that's all for me! I hope you'll consider jumping over to my K-6 blog to say "hi"! =)

~HoJo~

Thank you for hanging out with HoJo today...you'll find me at Melissa's blog Transitional Kinder with Mrs. O! Enjoy the Blog Hop!

Facebook Post Party

Hi, friends...welcome to our Facebook Post Party!

Tonight from 9:00-11:00 EST, go to my Facebook Fan Page

to see posts from some of my favorite bloggers directing you to their fabulous blogs. Some will be offering FREE items on their blogs for this special party! See you tonight!


For visiting me, I am offering to you some freebies that you may have missed:

I Can Sort and Graph

Shoe Box Report

I would love to hear about your favorite discoveries :)

The Best Things About March

Whew! I don't know about you, but March flew by. There was so much I wanted to share about our going-ons in the classroom, but time escaped me. Among other things, we celebrated Dr. Seuss's birthday, created "Wild Things" for Open House, and got creative with Shoe Box Reports. So, I'm putting it all together in one post. Grab your favorite drink and enjoy!

First, we practiced making tally marks for each date in March for our calendar (we use Number Corner) and used an odd / even pattern with our green shamrocks.

........Dr. Seuss Day........

Then we celebrated Dr. Seuss Day by writing silly rhyming poems on hats.

We practiced related facts using Shelley Gray's awesome Dr. Seuss Fact Family Task Cards. She created this leveled math resource for differentiated instruction with recording sheets. Love this!

We also practiced telling time to the hour and half-hour using Alisha's What Time is It?  resource. It's cute, colorful, and has recording sheets ~ what's not to love? 

And we used The Elementary Contessa's Do You Like Green Eggs?  graph. The "popular" vote that day was a mighty "yes!" Silly peer pressure :)

After we read Dr. Seuss books, we ended the day with snacks based on Green Eggs and Ham and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. Yum!

........Time for Open House........

After reading this post by Deanna Jump, I was inspired to use a "Wild Thing" theme for Open House. We started with her shared writing activity.

Talk about student participation!

We then used her text-to-self connection page. These are a hoot!!

I throw everything in my room and kick my dresser like I'm crazy. I scream like a girl. (Hey, now ~ lol.)

I chase my dog to the backyard. I chase her in a circle and around the house. (Fun workout now - wait 'til your older.)

I chase my dog in the backyard. Then I chase my sister outside. (You see a theme, here?)

I will run around like I am crazy outside in my front yard. (Hmmm...)

Here's what our completed hallway looked like:

........Book Box Reports........

Finally, I had my students bring in shoe boxes for their Shoe Box Report. I tweaked this first grade book report by adding lines for character names and blank stars at the bottom for a student rating. Click here for my shoe box version :)

click here for a copy

I know it was a super-long post...thanks for sticking with me until the end :)

I would love to hear from you. Your comments are like little doubloons in my virtual treasure box :)