Daily Five
A few years ago my school (a different one than where I teach now) decided to implement Daily 5 on a school-wide level. We were given some professional development classes (by our peers who had gone to workshops) and the Daily 5 book and told to implement this method. I read most of the book and really liked some of the ideas from it. As with everything in teaching though, I tweaked it to make it work for me and my kids.
The past two years I had gotten away from using Daily 5 and tried other things for "center time". This year after re-reading Debbie Diller's book, Literacy Work Stations (which has similar ideas), I decided to get back to doing the Daily 5 (my way, of course).
Since the beginning of this school year, I have been creating (or printing) centers that relate to the skills we are working on. However it has been very chaotic, without a routine. As I was reflecting this weekend, I knew my students were learning by doing these centers, but to me it felt unorganized. Anyone who knows me understands that when I feel unorganized, I get very uncomfortable. As a way to organize myself, I decided that my center time is going to be the Daily 5. The materials for the 5 might change tri-weekly to fit more specifically with skills that I am teaching for each cycle (our map goes by three week increments), but the centers will be the same.
If you have never read the book (you should!), the Daily 5 are the following:
Read to Self
Read to Someone
Listen to Reading
Word Work
Work on Writing
I did some searching and found some great FREE signs to use for my rotation board. Click here to get these really cute signs for FREE!
I know part of Daily 5 is that the students get to choose which center they go to, but in my classroom it seems easier if we go on a rotating schedule. Luckily my students love all of the activities, so they do not mind following my rotation board. I wrote my students' names on sentence strips in the groups that I want them in. Each day, I move their names to a different Daily Five activity. I have 20 students that are in my class during this time, but instead of having four in each group, I have the groups based on ability (for when I pull small groups). Some groups have only two or three students, but none have more than four.
Since the free signs that I downloaded did not have a sign for working with me, I created my own sign, so that those students who I work with will know where to go as well. I attempted to make my sign look similar to the free ones, but obviously it is not exact.
To make the sign, I used a FREE chevron background that I found on Pinterest that was linked to a TPT store (click here for the free chevron zip file). After that, I put a picture of myself and the words: Work With Miss J. Here is the finished sign:
If you want one that you can edit with your own name and picture (instead of making it yourself) click here.
I know part of Daily 5 is that the students get to choose which center they go to, but in my classroom it seems easier if we go on a rotating schedule. Luckily my students love all of the activities, so they do not mind following my rotation board. I wrote my students' names on sentence strips in the groups that I want them in. Each day, I move their names to a different Daily Five activity. I have 20 students that are in my class during this time, but instead of having four in each group, I have the groups based on ability (for when I pull small groups). Some groups have only two or three students, but none have more than four.
Since the free signs that I downloaded did not have a sign for working with me, I created my own sign, so that those students who I work with will know where to go as well. I attempted to make my sign look similar to the free ones, but obviously it is not exact.
If you want one that you can edit with your own name and picture (instead of making it yourself) click here.
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