Launching Daily 5 is one of the most important things you do at the beginning of the year. Just like your classroom management routines, you need to have a well formulated plan for teaching it or it's going to be chaos all year.. Trust me, no one wants that! ( I would know, I have been there!) I had one year where I didn't go as in-depth with teaching my Daily 5 routines and every day was like herding cats, and not the cute cuddly ones.-I'm talking lions. They should have included a college course on taming lions right along side teaching children to read good..(Zoolander, anyone?) I was so exhausted by the end of our rotations and I felt like I wasn't accomplishing what I needed to during my small group instruction either.
Lucky for you, my previous lion taming experience has led me to develop my Daily 5 unit for primary grades. You can find it here. Having a good foundation is key so here are some tips I have learned:
The first thing you need to do is buy my unit.. just kidding.. but no really. You can't go wrong with it! Even if you aren't ready to commit to buying it, I'm still going to give you some tips for starting Daily 5 off on the right foot…and I have a FREEBIE for you at the end and a surprise. Who doesn't love surprises?!
Tip #1:
Choose the aspects of Daily 5 you want to teach your students. If you want to teach them 3 ways to read a book, how to pick good fit books and all 5 stations, plan them out in an order that makes sense. If you don't want to teach how to pick good fit books until later in the year, that's something you need to think about when you're getting started. Reading The Daily 5 book by Gail Boushey and Joan Moser is a great place to start. It can be overwhelming but my unit will definitely help you if you aren't ready to dive in and devise your own plan.
Tip #2:
Have realistic expectations for your littles, be consistent, be consistent and be consistent… Did I mention you need to be consistent? If you want them to come to the carpet between each rotation and you plan to use a wind chime to signal the transition, then use the wind chime every time. If you have a specific location you want work on writing to happen, then be consistent. Make sure if it's an expectation for some, it's for all students and that you see it through. Routine is huge and students need to be comfortable in the routine so they know what to expect.
** Please do not stick with something that isn't working for you just because you need to be consistent** If you try something and it just isn't working.. that's okay! Have a meeting with your kiddos and be honest with them. I have had many conversations with my students that start off sounding like I'm asking for forgiveness. They sound very similar to: “Friends, how many of you have had great ideas before? or thought you had a great idea but realized that it wasn't that great after all? Well, Mrs Rehder had one of those ideas…” and then I continue to tell them why I am changing part of our routine.
Tip #3:
Practice.. Practice the stations until the kids can do them in their sleep. Okay, don't bore them to sleep but they need ample time to practice. Do whole group practice, guided practice and independent practice. The kiddos will need support for the first couple of weeks if not first full month of school. During this practice time, I walk around and assist students and help them see how they could solve their problem. It's important for them to understand how to solve problems when I am not there to help.
Before I start guided reading groups, I “practice” their independence. I wear a tiara I found on Amazon that shows the students I am busy and that they need to ask three before me. For a couple of days I wear the tiara during their practice session so they can practice not having me there to assist them if a small problem arises. We follow the three b's for interrupting me- bleeding, barfing, bawling. If no one is doing any of those things, they must solve the problem themselves or ask three friends to help before they interrupt me.
I hope these tips find you well in your pursuit of a successful Daily 5 time!
Here is a little sneaky peak at my Daily 5 Unit! Also, if you want to read about the books I use to launch Daily 5, you can find that here.
Thanks for stopping by! Make sure you sign up to receive emails because I am going to be sending out a freebie for how I organize and run my stations. Click here to get your freebie emailed to you! There will be two versions, a PowerPoint and a paper version that you can put in a pocket chart. I will also be giving one lucky winner my Daily 5 Unit free! <insert all the heart eyes!>
This video will show you how to use and edit the power point as well as a little about the pocket chart version. Here is an example of how I set my pocket chart up. I was always strategic about what station I replaced with their “teacher time.” The first 3 groups were my low reading levels. I used their read to someone time as our guided reading time. Group 4 was during work on writing. This is because I always allowed other time throughout the day for them to write and that was always a focus during our guided reading time. My group 5 had it during word work. I did this because they have their sight words mastered and we work on vocabulary during our guided reading time together.
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