I am truly sorry I did not post sooner. This week has had many unexpected events in it that kept me from blogging. But now I am back with part 2 of Daily 5.
I know since my last post you read the whole book, reorganized your library, and collected some book boxes, right? Now we will move on to the first day of school. One of the first parts of Daily 5 is introducing the three ways to read a book. They are:
Read the Pictures
Read the Words
Retell the Story
I started the Daily 5 on the very first day of kindergarten and I am so glad that I did! I started with introducing one of my favorite first day of school books - The Kissing Hand.
I asked my cuties if they know three ways we can read books. They stated things like reading words, mom reads to me, etc. I agree with them that we can read by reading words. Then I let them know that THEY can read the book by reading the pictures. I begin reading the book, alternating with me reading the words and allowing them to read the pictures to me. After we finish, I show them this anchor chart.
When I showed them the anchor chart, the bottom portion that says "Retell the Story" was covered with sticky notes so they cannot see it yet. I explained that we will learn about that part tomorrow.
On the second day of school we recalled the ways we learned we can read books. Then I told them we are going to learn the third way to read a book. They made some predictions, then I showed them the rest of our anchor chart - Retell the Story. We then retold the story of The Kissing Hand with words and then with retelling cards.
I also introduced Read to Self on the second day of school. I let my kiddos know that there will be a special friend to help them at school today. I showed them a bag with a dachshund puppet inside.
I then gave them clues about the friend. After many guesses I showed them the puppet inside.
(This is not my puppet, but I forgot to get a picture of it - oops!)
The puppet told the class his name is Dex and he wants to read his book to them.
(This book is about a dachshund who wants to become a hero. He needs to build his exercising stamina to become stronger.)
Dex (the puppet) asked the kids to tell him how they can read books and, thankfully, they recalled the three ways! Then Dex and my kiddos took turns reading the book together.
After we finished, we retold the story and focused on how much Dex had to exercise a lot, even though it's hard, to become a hero. I told my cuties that this is called building stamina and that we are going to build our stamina for how long we can read. I showed them their book boxes, which I had filled with five books each that seemed like a good fit for them.
(These are our book boxes right now. On the second day of school, they only had 5 books and were not decorated yet. I allowed my kiddos to decorate them when we built our stamina to 10 minutes.)
I then told them I would give them a special place that they needed to stay the whole time and practice reading their books from their box in the 3 ways we learned we can read a book until they heard my jingle bells ring. (It is very important that you establish a signal that let's students know it's time to return to the rug.) I placed my cuties around the room by using this Book Nooks chart.
Each of my kiddos' names were on a clip. The clip told them where their book nook will be for the day. I changed the clips each day after school. I used this chart for the first few weeks of establishing Daily 5 to help my kiddos understand what it means to work by themselves and to help them learn some good places they could pick to work later in our Daily 5 time. I never let them know that one day they will be able to make the choice of where they want to work. It was just a fun surprise one day when they came in and the book nook's chart was gone from our wall.
When everyone was placed around the room with their book boxes, I set a timer for 2 minutes. I did not know if we could sit and read for two minutes on the second day of school, but we tried it. While they read, I walked around the room and monitored them, looking for a "barometer child". A barometer child is "that kid". You know, the one that can't seem to to get it right and rolls around on the floor. If you spot the barometer child not reading their books, then you need to ring your bell and call EVERYONE to the rug. You do not want children to learn the wrong way to do Read to Self. Calling them to the rug as soon as you see someone break stamina will keep them from developing incorrect habits.
We actually made it to two minutes on the second day of school! Sprinkles to my kinders! I rang the bells after two minutes to call them back to the rug. They brought their book boxes with them. Once we were all on the rug together, I showed them where to store their book boxes.
Once our boxes were stored away, I showed them this graph.
We then filled in the graph for the second day of school with how many minutes we read that day. This graph was out for the first three weeks while we built our reading stamina. It was awesome to hear the kiddos boasting about their stamina to their parents as the number of minutes rose. I had one parent ask me "What is reading stamina?" on the third day of school. I just love it when they share their learning with their family!
Here are two copies of the stamina graph for you.
Can you believe this is only two days? There is so much in the Daily 5, but the kiddies really learn TONS from it. Please let me know if you have any questions and I'll be back with more lessons for the first week of school with the Daily 5!
