Teacher Time Posters!!

Hello! Sorry I have been away from the blogging world. There have been a lot of changes this Summer (will post about all that later). I have been getting an incredible amount of requests for the Teacher Time daily 5 choice cards in poster size so here they are! There are 3 teacher choices. Click on the picture to get the .pdf from Google Docs! :)

updates

I cannot believe it has been over a month since I last blogged. I just wanted to post an update on a few of the things we have been doing in class.

Daily 5:

I looked up from my guided reading group and saw that he had taken the paper for the alphabet font sorting and was using it for his puzzle. What a great idea!

Added a writing piece that the students MUST finish sometime that week for work on writing. I like how it makes the students accountable in this area. I write each student's name on the top so I know exactly who hasn't finished.

I saw lots of bloggers with amazing labeling lessons (especially for their apple unit) so we made and labeled our pumpkins!

Daily 5 - Word Work

I think Word Work is my favorite Daily 5 choice to introduce. The kiddos LOVE choosing it and there's a lot of variety in what they can do (just check out the picture below!). 

I have a hard time getting the students to call this station "word work" instead of "playdoh" :)

The big oil drip pan is GREAT for having the students sort magnetic letters. I got the idea off of pinterest and it was super easy to make.  I put magnet tape on the back of the letter headers but if I could do it over I would use tape instead so the students can't get them out of order. 

Here are some pictures of them in action:

Letters from Lakeshore Learning

letter sorting by diff. fonts

Playdoh names! They can make their own name or a friend's. 

Playdoh names and playdoh cookie cutter letters

File folder game

file folder game

Environmental Print match-up (you can also play this as a memory game)

building words/names

When I first introduced this station, I had every table group (I have 3 table groups) assigned to a different word work choice. Ex: I had group 1 work with magnetic letters, Group 2 work with playdoh names/cookie cutters, Group 3 work with the file folder games, environment print and letter font sort. After every group had a chance to work with each of the tools, I let them choose whatever they wanted.
As the year goes on I switch a lot of games out and put in new games/puzzles.

The letter headers for the oil drip is an already-made dj inkers set.

Environmental Print cards are free printables from Hubbards Cupboard.

Good luck with your Daily 5!

Daily 5 - Work on Writing

More Daily 5 info! I tried to do more pictures, since I know that's what I personally like looking at :)

I have been introducing each one of the Daily 5 choices slowly,  starting at 1 minute of stamina, then moving to 3 minutes, 5 minutes, and then 10 minutes. It usually takes us a few days to build up to that and I don't introduce a new Daily 5 choice until they have reached 10 minutes. Currently I have introduced Read to Self, Work on Writing and Word Work. This week, since we have learned all three, I will let them choose from all 3 for a few days and I will introduce Listen to Reading later this week.

Here are the different writing tools the students can choose from during Work on Writing:

These tools are right next to the typing paper/dictionaries. I separated these tools from the dry-erase ones so students wouldn't accidentally use markers on dry-erase boards and dry-erase markers on typing paper. 

Goodies:
Write the Room pages are from the fabulous J. Meacham. You can find it under "Write the Room, By Letter, Long Form)

Letter Tracing Pages are from Learning Page. You have to be a member to download the pages BUT it's free to become a member!

Writing tools labels (pdf version) were created using Microsoft Word.  If you want the actual word document you can get that here.

They did such an amazing job with this one! We talked about only writing WORDS/letters on dry-erase boards and typing paper. That was really hard for them to remember but they got it by time we got to 10 minutes of stamina! I am so proud of all of them! Here are some pics of them working.

I was going to group this post with Word Work as well but it's WAY past my bedtime. More to come! :)

Multicultural Daily 5

I have had a lot requests for multicultural posters and choice cards so here they are. Thanks for the feedback! Click on the picture to go directly to the Google doc.

Full page posters

6 to a page choice cards

Computer Choice Time Cards

UPDATE: Click on the first computer cards to download! Thanks, Tracy, for the cute computer kids!

Emilys, I have not forgotten about y'all! I'm still in the process of trying to get permission for these cute kids on computer clipart so in the meantime, here is a preview of what it looks like.

Not sure if you were interested in them all looking the same so I made this one as well.

Hopefully I'll hear back soon!

Daily 5 Choice Cards

Update: Here is a more diverse set of daily 5 cards! Thanks for the idea, Emily!

I love reading everyone's comments! Someone suggested making those Daily 5 posters I blogged about here smaller so that each child gets a set to use as a way to choose their Daily 5 session on a pocket chart. Great idea, Cassie!

Update: Cassie, I LOVE the idea of having a teacher choice card! It was no problem at all to make. I made three different versions (different teacher clipart) so you have a choice! I hope you don't mind that I shortened "time with teacher" to "teacher time"!

UPDATE: Due to the size of this Teacher Time file, there is no preview available on Google Docs. When you click the "Download" button, it will bring you to a page where you will see the following. CLICK DOWNLOAD ANYWAY. Sorry for the confusion!! 

Daily 5 - Read to Self

Still waiting for these bad boys to go on sale...or maybe find a coupon to use on them but no luck so far. I know Target is selling them at the dollar spot for $2.50 but I've only found 4 red ones and I'm afraid I'll scrounge around all Summer only to have 14 by the beginning of the school year. And these have wing stabilizers attached to the bottom that you can slide out!
Last year I made my own by using a certain type of mailing box (that will remain nameless) that I cut diagonally in half. It seemed like a good enough plan since that certain type of mailing box was really thick and sturdy. I took the time to cut it and painted each one and naively thought that I could use it for at least 2 years. Yeeah...they barely made it to the end of the year so I decided to just invest in real plastic ones this time around.

So Read to Self sounds pretty self-explanatory. The students learn beforehand that there are 3 ways to read a book: Read the words, read the pictures, retell the story. I made a poster with simple illustrations next to it last year but LOVE this idea from Beg, Borrow, Steal:

I'd still put simple illustrations next to each one but I love this visual!

I let the students "shop for books" every Monday morning. I would have the students come in first thing and get started on their Morning Work. While they were working I'd call on a group of students at a time to put their books up, which was a very quick task for them to do since all the books were labeled (blogged about that here). When all the books had been put back, I called on groups of students to go shopping for books by getting 3 books from the Classroom library and 3 books from my special stack of books. These are the books that are simple and uses a lot of sight words they have learned. The students also put books in their book boxes from our Guided Reading time so they have a book in there to practice fluency. Those books are in their own special bag and gets traded out when they meet with me during the week.
Next step - I need to find cheap lights that I can have around the room to make it cozier and easier to read!

Daily 5 Schedule

It seems like more and more campuses are trying out Daily 5 so I wanted to share the schedule that our Kindergarten team came up with for last year. I'm going to talk about "breakout sessions" in the schedule and that's a time when students are able to choose where they want to go: read to self (R), work on writing (W), word work (WW), listen to reading (L), or read to someone (RS). I have a chart that I print out weekly and I go down the list of students' names asking which station they would like to be at. This sounds like a long process but it actually took less than 3 minutes (we timed ourselves!). I made an example chart below. Click here to download the blank template.

I change up the order I call on them (of course!) so that it is more fair, since I can only have a certain amount of students at certain stations. The T stands for Teacher station and those kiddos met with me during that breakout session. I like this chart because I can clearly see what session they have already been to and whether or not they have done the required Read to Self or Work on Writing for the day. This is where it gets a little confusing, but you can arrange this any way you like. To make it easier to understand I'm going to list out by days exactly which group I met with.

Day 1 (3 breakout sessions) - Met with Reading Group 1 (highest needs), Reading Group 2 and Reading Group 3. Only 3 breakout sessions so that I have time later on for whole group writing (journals).

Day 2 (3 breakout sessions) - Met with Reading Group 1 (highest needs), Reading Group 4 and Reading Group 5. Only 3 breakout sessions so that I have time later on for whole group writing (journals).

Day 3 (4 breakout sessions) - Met with one Writing Group per session.

Day 4 (4 breakout sessions) - Met with one Writing Group per session.

Day 5 (usually 3 or 4 breakout sessions, but this day is more flexible) - Progress monitored individual students.

Here is my morning schedule:

7:40 - 7:50 Morning Announcements/Jobs

7:50 - 8:30 Calendar, Morning Message

8:30 - 8:45 ELA lesson (ex: focus letter, sing letter song, read poem of the week)

8:45 - 9:00 Breakout Session #1

9:00 - 9:30 ELA lesson (ex: writing for focus letter - P is for ______, shared writing)

9:30 - 9:45 Breakout Session #2

9:45 - 10:00 ELA short lesson (ex: learn word wall word, maybe do a sight word journal page)

10:00 - 10:15 Breakout Session #3

10:15 - 10:45 Lunch --- yes, we had lunch this early.

10:45 - 11:15ish (we had restroom break on the way back to class) Breakout Session #4

Please don't get overwhelmed by this! My main concern last year was that I wouldn't stick to the schedule and if I'm a few minutes late here and a few minutes late there then it would throw off the whole schedule. I'm not going to lie, that did happen, but for the most part the students became familiar with the routine to know exactly what to expect and how to clean/move to the carpet efficiently. You have to remember that with Daily 5 a LOT of time is spent in the very beginning training them and retraining, modeling and remodeling (and modeling the incorrect behavior). 

The schedule above is only one of the days. On other days, you might show the students how to correctly write the focus letter during one of the ELA lessons, or maybe work on poetry folders during that time. It gets easier! That's the good news! The hardest part is the beginning so persevere! 

I'll stop here for today. I plan on posting different ideas you can do for each Daily 5 choice. Hope this has been helpful and let me know if you have any questions! 

Classroom Library baskets and labels

I decided to completely reorganize my classroom library last year and I am so glad I did. The baskets were $1 at Target and they are selling them again right now. I labeled the inside of every book with the same label that is on the book basket so the students know EXACTLY where each book belongs. This was especially helpful because the students "shopped" for books every Monday to put in their individual book boxes for daily 5. These baskets are the perfect size for *most* picture books. The only books that didn't fit just right are Froggy books but they are only bent a tad and I didn't have any problems with them all year.  

I have uploaded the labels below as .pdf files. Be careful when printing directly from .pdf files to the label sheets though because the dimensions come out a little off.

            


Here are the word documents if you need to add/change anything. The fonts I used are Chinacat-thin and tweed. Click to download the free fonts!

Classroom Library Book Basket labels
Book labels

Happy organizing!

Daily 5 Posters

Click on the image to download these posters. Thanks to the fabulous Deanna Jump for the font and inspiration to create these posters. I have also incorporated the clipart from Tammy's Blog so I am calling these posters a mash-up of great ideas.

I am thinking about putting these posters up along with the corresponding anchor chart so the students will have a picture icon to go with each. Another idea is to have the students' names on clothespins so they can clip their name on the daily 5 station of their choice. This is a bit difficult for me because I have 4 Daily 5 sessions in a day and the students are not allowed to go to the same one twice in a day. I would love to hear how you guys let your kiddos choose their daily 5 stations!

Daily 5

It is quite unfortunate that I decided to create this blog AFTER I have packed up my classroom and the kiddos are all done for the year. I do have, however, some pictures of Daily 5 in action. This past school year was the first year we have implemented Daily 5 as a school and to be honest, I was hesitant replacing my literacy centers. After a whole year I was amazed at what the students were able to do. Here are some pros:

- MUCH less preparation - the same 5 stations (I have a few new activities every week)
- the students are extremely independent so reading/writing groups are uninterrupted
- it is quiet!
I could really go on and on but the book explains it all. I would recommend watching the DVD especially for Daily 5 in Kindergarten.

Anyhow, here are a few pictures I took:

You can see the students are engaged with what they are doing. At this table some are doing listening to reading and one girl is practicing writing on the dry-erase board. The students are allowed to sit wherever they like.

He is at the writing station with a picture dictionary.

I was fortunate enough to have 4 computers in my room so I set them up as a part of the Listening to Reading station on Tumblebooks. All I had to do was log in to the computers and the students were able to do the rest (open up a browser, find Tumblebooks from the  Bookmarks Bar, enter in the username/password for Tumblebook and pick a book of their choice!)

Here is one of my writing groups during Daily 5.

Here is the Word Work station. In the beginning of the year I laminated all the students' names and they used playdoh  to form their names. You can also laminate sight word cards well.