Daily 5 Questions and Answers

Hi friends!  Good news - my camera is working!  I snapped these pics today of my fur babies and uploaded them just fine.

 

Now, if I could just get in my classroom and start setting up...

Okay, now onto the content of this post~

I have received many questions about Daily 5.  The questions I received I have answered, but I thought that I would provide those here as well in case anyone else is curious.

1.  How do you fit it all in?  What is your schedule?

Our day is packed for sure.  Here is the schedule of our day:

7:10 - Assembly

7:25 - Breakfast in the Classroom (Check folders while students work on morning buzz work and eat)

7:40 - School Starts/Clean Up Breakfast

7:50 - Morning Meeting and Message

8:00 - Calendar

8:15 - Bathroom

8:25 - Math/Guided Math with Math Tubs

9:05 - Special Areas

9:55 - Science or Social Studies (This is when we do our theme.)

10:30 - First round of Daily 5 (This is when I do guided reading, so I call my readers to the table FIRST, then I check in the rest of the class to work on their independent daily 5 choice.)

10:45 - Mini-Lesson (Clean up round 1 and meet on the rug for our lesson.  My first mini lesson of the day is always a sight word lesson or a word work lesson.  During this lesson we sing Heidi Songs for our sight words, play sight word games, or play a word work game like a real/nonsense word sort game.  I often use games from the awesome themed products you can buy on TPT that would fit in here for word sorts and sight word games - there's tons out there.  That means, though, that whatever game we play, I make enough to have groups of two students, which means I would make 10 sets of most of those word sort type games.  It was totally worth it to me, but you do not have to do it this way at all.)

11:00 - Round 2 of Daily 5 (This is when I do guided reading, so I call my readers to the table FIRST,

then I check in the rest of the class to work on their independent daily 5 choice.)

11:15 - Mini-Lesson (Clean up round 1 and meet on the rug for our lesson.  This is when we work on CAFE strategies with our read a loud.  We have a basal, but I rarely used it.  I just used the big books that came with it.)

11:40 - Bathroom

11:50 - Lunch

12:25 - Bathroom

12:35 - Daily 5 Round 3 (This is when I do guided reading, so I call my readers to the table FIRST,

then I check in the rest of the class to work on their independent daily 5 choice.)

12:50 - Clean up

1:00 - Recess

1:20 - Bathroom

1:30 - Writer's Workshop (Lucy Caulkins)

2:00 - Play centers

2:20 - Clean up/pack up

2:35 - Dismissal

 

2.  How many library bins do you have?

 

I posted about my library here.  I have 26 topic library bins and 6 leveled bins.  Here and here are the labels if you want them.  They are really nothing fancy.

3.  Do you ever buy center units on TPT?  How do those fit in?

 

I love purchasing the fabulous TPT center packs.  Two of my favorite sellers are Vickie Plant and Julie Lee.  I don't use them during the Daily 5 rounds, but rather I make class sets of the games and use them after mini lessons for student practice.  The math center activities from these packs are also made into class sets, then I place one copy into a math tub.  Here are some of the class sets I have made this summer:

 

 

Community Helpers Roll Say Keep from Live Laugh Love Kindergarten

I always make my class sets in different colors since we usually play these games on the floor.  This way if one piece is left out after clean up, I know which bag it goes into.

 

Apple ABC Memory from Deedee Wills

Once again I have them color coded.

 Pete the Cat Counting Memory  from Fran Kramer

 

School is Fun Math and Literacy by Julie Lee and Deanna Jump 

There are only 6 sets of these because we will do them in table groups.  I love the method that Julie Lee does with having a different color for each item in the activity.  Brilliant!

This definitely takes a lot of time and my school doesn't have a lot of parent support, so I make these little goodies on my own.  It's worth it, though.  I hope this helps you to know how you can use the treasures on TPT even if you do Daily 5.

4.  Do you have your Book Nooks chart to download?

I mentioned my Book Nooks in this post.

 Here it is if you want it.  Once again, it is nothing fancy.  I would recommend making your own once you classroom is set up.  You know the space you have and where you want to place students.

I hope these questions helped you.  Let me know if you need anything else.  I am really wanting to post again about the next steps in Daily 5.  My struggle is I need some pics of my listening activities and it's all stored away.  (Can you tell I am getting anxious about this fact.)  I promise I will get more posted one day.

Take care, polar bear!