1. Establish a gathering place for brain and body breaks.
My gathering space this past year was my carpet that I use for calendar. I found it the easiest place to “meet up” with everyone. I love the wind chime idea The Sister mentioned in their book, but I kept meaning to bring it to school, but never did. I hope I remember to do it this year.
I sing a little song to my students (and I can’t sing well at all)
2. Developing the concept of “good fit” books
I like to work with the media specialist on this idea because I want my class to pick books from the library and my class library the same.
Ironically, I don’t think my kids have to know how to pick only “Good Fit” books right away because they will LOVE the pictures in so many books before they can read. I want them to learn to pick books that interest them first, then we can work on if they can read them or not. (I hope this makes sense.)
3. Create anchor charts with students.
4. Short, repeated intervals of independent practice and setting up book boxes
Now a K kid in March is WAY WAY WAY different than a K kid in August, so I am planning on using some charts. I want to do read to self and word work the first week of school for sure… but independent from each other. I heard others say they didn’t start a choice board until students had 20 minutes of stamina in each area.
I am using tubs from Really Good Stuff… here is a picture of the bins with temporary labels they give you. I was not about to waste labels on the end of the year, so I put up construction paper for mine.
I have the same tubs for my classroom library as I do for my student bins. (Our class sizes were going up this year, so I had to get an extra set of them.)
I am NOT going to do the D5 on the first day of school… too much going on
On day 1 I worry about keeping them safe, feeding them lunch, and getting them home.
I will start D5 on day 3 I think… I have copies of Chicka Chicka for each child. I also have class books we read to share. I make TONS of printable easy reader books, so I will be sure to put them in there too. I will also make a Brown Bear class book for the each to learn names and faces with.
5. Calm Signals and check in procedures (Do you already have a signal? How will you handle check ins?)
I do not have a signal for my class… usually I give them a cleanup warning so they know to wrap things up, then I call them to the carpet. I will be using a windchime to do this.
We do the thumbs up and thumbs to the side liek the sisters recomment. I like it, but rarely do those “should ahve been thumb to the side” studetns put their thumb to the side.
6. Using the correct model/incorrect model approach for demonstrating appropriate behaviors.
I keep track of behaviors, but only after I know that I have taught my students the correct ones. As soon as students show behaviors I do not approve of while doing D5- we will stop and regather. BUT… if I have the same student who simply can not remaing in an activity for 20 minutes (because we KNOW this is going to happen!) I will do my best to set them up for success as well.
1. Call them to work with an adult or strong peer role role quicker than I would normally.
2. Leave student alone when they are showing correc tbehaviors, but praise them later!
3. Keep them away from students who are not positve role models for them.
4. Reteach correct behaviors often.
5. Remember their age- they are only 5!!!
6. Wiggle often and for every minilesson. If you don’t get the wiggles out together, they will wiggle on their own.
One thing the questions didn’t cover was a class library. Let’s face it… if your students are going to be reading a lot (and they will be!) you are going to need a system for selecting and returning books often. I have a shelf of random books for students to look through, but I needed a system for putting out MY books from MY unit tubs after I use them for instruction. These are always the most popular student choices. I took the same tubs as my student book baskets, but labeled each one differently with a word and a picture. All the books of mine that cover those areas go in that tub. My students did really well with this… really well. Plus when I needed to put those book back in the tubs, I could let my class know at the end of the D5 time to return that “theme” book. I could easy file those books back and I would change that label out for the next unit.
Here are my labels I made to match all my D5 and Literacy Work Station “stuff.” I am going to print them out, write on student names. I also use these for my choice board names and will use it for my class library labels as well.
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| If you are interested, head here to get them. |
My advice is this… start thinking about and planning for your class library NOW.
I have always made my anchor charts with my students… and during the time I am writing down the "thought" I end up losing one of two kids. I'm a fast writer, but with a special needs classroom with 75-100% ADHD, I haven't had time to play with writing, so they end up messy (in my mind) and I have to do them again. (UGG!) This summer I am going to create my anchor charts, and cover them. When they get the thought, I'll reveal them… if they can stump me, I'll reward the student for adding to our poster.
The reality is, other than our long-lasting posters/anchor charts, I plan on continuing to work with my students through anchor chart development…. or creating anchors on our classroom Mimio. I tried this last year, but had technical difficulties with my Mimio.
Thank you for making the observation about kids just enjoying the pictures in books early on! And what if they make up stories to go with the pictures? It's a great way to build a love of books early in the school year!
Greg
http://Www.kindergartensmorgasboard.blogspot.com
I was thinking the same. Here in Canada, some students start Junior Kindergarten when they are not even 4. I think having them pick a book that interests them will be my first step too!
Thanks for sharing your ideas…
Thank you for the good summary. I don't have a copy of the book yet so I definitely have some questions about D5. I am familiar with this literacy approach, but there is still a lot to learn. Can you tell me a little bit more about the student book boxes you mentioned. When do they use those, is it during read to self or read to someone?
The book will do a MUCH better job explaining book baskets than I can. My students use them for read to self and read to others.
In my library, I have a basket that is labeled good books to read with a partner (or something to that effect) They can chose other books too but this helps them get a good start and many times I have to copies of each book in that basket so that they can both have a copy in hand. You definately need to get you a copy of the D5 book. It's well worth the money.
I always love your thoughtful posts. It makes me feel better to know that not everyone is going to start D5 the first day of school. I too hope to keep them safe, fed and home (to the correct place!) on the first day. I will read to them, and let them read to self and others, but it seems like you would need to do a little bit of assessment to even know what type of books would be a good fit for some of the kiddos. I didn't even think about using the media specialist! I will be bugging her a lot this year! I will tell her it was your idea. Thanks again,
Carole Dawn
http://www.kindergartencafeteria.blogspot.com
I am right there with you on the good fit books. I teach Pre-K so theres no way that my kids are reading. Some may be able to read at the end of the year but just barely. I do want them to be able to handle the books and looking at the pictures is just as important. I plan to place books that I read to them in their books that they can pick from so that they can retell the stories.
This year my classroom library was SO unorganized and the kids did not take care of it at all. That is completely my fault though, I didn't teach them how! My school ordered me some tubs for books and when I say tubs, I mean huge gigantic tubs that could hold about 50 books each. The kids would rummage through them like a garage sale. The books weren't labeled so they didn't know where to put them back. The bins were labeled but with no pictures (what kind of Kindergarten teacher am I?!). I think the labels were more for my own benefit. It was just a mess. I have spent much of my summer vacation so far working on my library…putting the categories of books into small sub-categories, labeling bins and books, spreading my library out around my room so that all the books aren't congested in one area. This book study is really helping me to see all of the errors of my ways!! Thanks for reading this long post if you did. 🙂
Ashley
Thank you for sharing your song for coming to the gathering place. I love it! I also do not always make every anchor chart with the children. Most times I will start it, and then we will add to it in class. It saves a lot of time and keeps their attention.
Angela
The Daily Alphabet
I agree about Good Fit books for our kinders differing. I want to focus on teaching my students to read the pictures well, not just glancing and turning the page first. I will revisit the concept of good fit when they can actually read some of our classroom library.
Donna
I don't make my students pick Good Fit books right away either. I put a few in their bins for them and I don't worry about it for a while. If I have a student who is ready to read I will work with him/her to find Good Fit Books individually. I still never make all students have all good fit books. I will tell them to have five good fit, five free choice.
I agree with you – I am not going to start the Daily 5 until the 3rd day of school. We actually start school on Thursday, so I plan to start the Daily 5 on Friday.
✿ Stacy
Land of Aha-Z!