Daily 5 Chapter 2 Linky

I am totally loving this book study so far! I loved reading everyones posts and comments on Chapter 1...I am learning so much and getting some great ideas from you all!!

1. Do you trust your students? How do you build this trust? Are you able to trust them and allow them to be independent throughout all aspects of your day? Are you going to be able to stay out of their way?

I trust most of my students! I feel like you always have one or two students that you have to constantly stay on top of.  But with that said, I am going to really work on coming up with ways to guide these students better and show them how proud I am when they do a good job, etc.  I build trust starting the first week of school. I give them tasks and jobs to do. I teach them the right way to act and I model great behaviors. They learn so quickly and when they do, I am able to trust them! Now....can I stay out of their way? I really do for the most part!! But again, I have had certain students that I need to stay on top of to complete their work, follow directions, etc. Hopefully, if I teach Daily 5 the right way and I teach the students to take ownership in their learning--then other students will assist their peers in staying on task and reminding them! April Wolf emailed me a wonderful idea that would assist in building trust right off the bat, "A first step to building that I was not able to do last year, would be sending the student a post card before school starts." I LOVE this idea...I would totally do this if I could! (We don't get our class list until the afternoon before school starts!) 

2. How much choice do you give your students throughout the day? Do you go over your daily schedule with your students or is it just 'posted' in the room?

To be completely honest, I haven't been giving my students that much choice. When I am pulling reading groups, my students have been rotating to ASSIGNED literacy centers. I can't wait to switch this! I think choice is going to be so good for them! Of course I will need to thoroughly teach the centers and expectations beforehand. I also do think I will need to somewhat monitor their choices just to make sure certain students aren't choosing the same thing daily. My daily schedule is posted, we go over it daily, and I even let a student put a check mark next to each item as it is completed. They LOVE this!! This is what I use....

I am putting them on sale until tomorrow evening....AND if you don't see something in the packet that you do during your day, let me know and I will add it for you!!

3. How are you going to create that sense of community where students will hold each other accountable?

The first few weeks of school are so important in building that sense of community. As a teacher, you need to show them how to act, treat the students how you want them to treat each other, and make sure the students feel almost like they are at 'home' in the class! What I have done in the past (and it really works!) is create anchor charts with my students on expectations and rules for all aspects of the day. I have even had my students sign these anchor charts as a promise to me that they were going to follow what we made/discussed together.

4. Student ownership in learning? How do you instill this in every child?

I think it is important to talk with your children about why they are doing certain tasks throughout the day. Even before I read a book I tell them why we are reading it and why it is so important.  Some children will pick up on this urgency right away and they probably don't need to hear me constantly explaining the 'why', but others need it all the time. They are 5 and they are going to be building this ownership throughout the year!

5. Stamina! How are you going to build stamina with reading? independent work? Will you use a timer? Will you set goals?

April Wolf said in her email, "We had a goal of two minutes at first and built up to 15 minutes over  a couple of weeks. Setting a goal and celebrating it is something for the class to look forward to."  I think this is a great idea! I like the idea of setting a goal; however, I will need to make sure that 'goals' will work for my incoming class. I wouldn't want students to be only worrying about their goal and not focusing on what is really important, the learning!

Next week we are heading back over to Tammy's wonderful blog to discuss Chapter 3! I am excited to move on into the more fun parts of Daily 5! My mind has already been racing with new ideas for word work, listening, etc! 

Please link up with your Chapter 2 reflections, thoughts, experiences, ideas here: