So things are slowly starting to get into a routine at school. We started our first story in language arts, David's New Friends and we got everything done with it, we needed to. Of course since I haven't started guided reading groups, we have extra time to fit everything in, even with the day off on Monday. I won't start guided reading groups (book clubs as we call them) until October when we are finished building our stamina on all of Daily 5. Otherwise it is a disaster. You really DO need to take the time to do it and practice it. My co-teacher usually rushes it and she has more problems with the students staying on task because of it (I don't tell her that though). So we have been working on Read to Self and we are up to 10 minutes of stamina, although to be honest I have 3 boys who are probably at 1 minute of stamina. I just didn't want to make the whole class stop when the other 22 ARE at 10 minutes. These boys are my low boys, get reading help, and don't want to sit and read. I get it, it's harder for them, and let's face it the books they CAN read are not that interesting. We did I-PICK and I had them pick 4 books at their reading level and 4 books using the I-PICK strategy, however as I mentioned before, they did not do the I-PICK strategy. One of my boys that I mentioned above, picked Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, my fattest chapter book with the most words. They are tiny and a ton on a page. I think that book is a level U and he is reading at a level H. There are no pictures nothing. That's what I'm saying. Just picking a book because he thinks it makes him look cooler, even though he can't read it. I just let it be because he does have 4 books in there that he can read. We need to practice I-PICK some more. This upcoming week I'm also doing the idea I saw on Pinterest of a "Shopping Schedule" for trading out the books in book boxes. I made my cute little posters and will introduce it to them on Monday so they can start trading out their books and hopefully do a better job of picking books since they have to last a week before they can "shop" again. It will also be good training for making sure they are putting the books away correctly in our book nook.
We also started Work on Writing this week. When I mentioned how we were going to be doing Work on Writing, what it meant, and showed them my writing center, they were not all that excited. lol We made our i-chart and got started and they LOVED it. They were very sad when they had to stop at 3 minutes! I said, "See, I told you it was fun! That's why it's on our chart!" So they have been excited every time we have done it and are up to 7 minutes of stamina on that. My plan is to introduce Listen to Reading next week as only 4 kids can do it at a time, so the others will practice 1 of the other 2 while they are working on that and we will rotate so everyone gets a turn 1 day next week. I also need to take their headshots so I can add them to the check-in sheet I made for my Smartboard. The students will drag their picture to the activity they are doing. My goal is to start book clubs and full fledge Daily 5 by the week of October 14th. That gives us time to learn all 5, build up our stamina, and practice how changing between them will work. Have to practice that quiet transition time too.
I will leave you with some pictures of our classroom from this week. :)
Read to Self
My Writing Center
My poor "h" fell off the wall for Lunch. I can't find it so I have to make a new one! My writing center has the kit from A Cupcake for the Teacher, the topic cards from Teaching with Love and Laughter, and the Common Core prompt Cards from Falling into First.
Work on Writing
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