I LOVE LOVE LOVE the Daily 5. Here is my story... I was using centers (and pulling my hair out everyday) then, I went to a conference by a literacy specialist in my school and never did a center again!
So here are the "Sisters" in my classroom. Read to Self, Read to Someone, Listen to Reading, Word Work, and Work on writing all have anchor charts created with the children and posted on our classroom walls.
This is my "center" chart. As part of their morning jobs, students come and select their rounds for the day. I place students on guided reading, book shop, and read to self (for conferences). Students move their clothespin on the round they choose.
Like the "Sisters" suggest, I use my extensive collection of shoes to introduce choosing a good fit book. My students LOVED this idea.
We even traded shoes to show that some books fit for our friends but not for us!
Here we are in action! We use bean bag chairs, carpet squares, rugs, stools, chairs, and even LAUNDRY baskets to cuddle up in and read!
This is what we use for book bins. I ordered these from really good stuff.
We also use cereal boxes and even ziploc bags! Cheap and easy when you are just getting started!
Here is our station for word work. Students choose a drawer and complete the word work activity to record their words and sentences they create. Students also choose an activity to do before their drawer work, like contractions, compound words, etc.
We use wiki sticks, magnetic letters, foam letters, building blocks, stencils, gel pens, chunking cards, even an old keyboard from a computer!
Here is our writing station. Each child has their writing folder, and a bin (picture below) with blue pens, red pens (revision), stapler, staple remover, and a date stamp!
Does anyone else use the daily 5?? I am going to post about my newly created CAFE board too! What works for everyone??
