Daily 5 Shares

It's December and the 71st day of first grade. AGAIN, where did the time go?! I'm still struggling to find spare minutes to keep up with my little blog and I am really missing it, and all of you.

I'm new to Daily 5 this year and I am loving it. At first, I wasn't sure. I loved the way I did my old centers rotations, but it was so much work on my end to create new things each week and prep the materials, only for the students to visit each center one time during the week. I love that with Daily 5, I can focus on other things that need my time and still give my students meaningful, independent practice while I pull small groups. Word work has always been my favorite part of teaching literacy and I ESPECIALLY love it now with Daily 5. I introduced the word work section of Daily 5 to my kids last. There are SO many choices and I wanted to be sure we were ready. Word work is where I squeeze in all of the fun word sorts, word building games, stamps, puzzles, etc that I've been using for years and didn't want to let go of because I know the kids love them too. There are just so many things to choose from though, that the students often forget exactly what they can go to during that choice. To help provide support for that, I created this visual that I hang up above the cart where most of my word work materials are stored. The students can refer back to this mini-poster when they are looking for something new to do. Click on the picture below to download from Google docs.

My other share is a management tool that I created about a month ago. Before that, I was just trusting my kids to make their own choices and self-manage what they were going to each day. They go to three choices each day, one of which is always read to self, and must visit the other 4 choices at least twice during the week. This still leaves them with 2 blocks left over to go back and visit a favorite activity again. I quickly realized that they wanted to visit everything, but they just couldn't remember where they'd been the day before... and then I realized I couldn't either, so how could I have expected them to?! I made this very plain and simple recording sheet so that they could keep track of (and I could monitor, if need be) where they were going each day and stay on track for the week. I squished 4 weeks onto one page so that they can keep one page for the whole month - the last thing they or I need is another paper (or set of copies) to keep up with or remember to get run off before each Monday. This is our fourth week using the recording sheet and it's going really well! Again, click on the picture below to download from Google docs.

On a completely unrelated note - if you are looking for any new activities, my math stations are currently full of Cara Carroll's Merry and Bright Math Tubs and her Place Value Packet of Fun activities. I highly recommend stopping by TpT for both units - they were well worth my money! I really don't know where she finds the time, but I am sure glad that she does :)! I hope to catch up a little with the blogging world during my precious 2 weeks off... but just in case I don't, enjoy your last days of 2011 and stay warm! It's even cold in Texas this week!!!

PS - I've gotten lots of comments and emails about the homework menus. I have to tell you that they are going SO well. I really encourage you to try using a homework menu sometime soon! The products I'm getting are wonderful work samples and for the first time ever, I get homework from every child *almost* every week! The kids love it and I love it - what could be better?  Email me at FantasticFirstBlog{at}gmail{dot}com if you would like to see more samples or have any questions!