KD5: Chapter 3

1. Establish a gathering place for brain and body breaks. (Do you call your gathering place anything special? A few of my teammates did. Annie called hers the "Family Room" and Kim calls hers the "Learning Space." I need to come up with something better than "the carpet" lol!) 
 I just moved my classroom at the end of the school year, so I do not currently have ANYTHING set up! Unfortunately, I am really boring and call my meeting place "the carpet" which is silly because I don't even have a special carpet designating our meeting area. I hope to find a better idea here!





2. Developing the concept of "good fit" books (There are LOTS of examples of different good fit lessons in blogland AND Pinterest)

I LOVE the book "Goldi Socks and the Three Libearians"by Jackie Mims Hopkins.

Then, following the Sister's advise, I have students model a book that is too difficult, a book that is too easy, and a just right book. 
 
3. Create anchor charts with students How will these be visual in the room? Where will you store them? What about small spaces?


I am VERY limited in wall space. I even have to cover up my chalkboard to display my CAFE menu! (Yes, I still have a chalkboard.) I put our anchor charts on the wall where I can find space and refer to them throughout the year. 
Next year I plan on having students fill out their own personal anchor charts while or after I fill our our large class version. I learned this from KinderGals this summer while blog hopping. Kim showed her lesson for persuasive writing and how she used a large anchor chart for instruction and the students filled out their own mini-version at the same time. I think it would be great to have students collect these in a tabbed folder to keep inside their book bins.
 
4. Short, repeated intervals of independent practice and setting up book boxes (How are you going to keep track of stamina? What will you use for book boxes? What are you going to put in those book boxes on the 1st day of school?)

I plan on posting this outside our classroom next year. 

Courtesy of Teaching With Style, you can get yours here.
I posted last week about how we compete with the first graders down the hall to increase our stamina. Posting our stamina in the hall would really help with this. 

I use these for our book boxes. 

I am on my fourth year with the same boxes. Worth the investment. A few could stand to be replaced from students drop-kicking them across the room or sitting on them (discouraged behaviors, students had consequences ;o).
Before school starts I put a few books in each bin. I select one book with no words (they came with our reading program), two easy readers, and two picture books--something girly for the girls and something boy-ish for the boys. This gets students through until I teach them how to book shop. 
Speaking of book shopping... I really like this idea, from here: 

 
5. Calm Signals and check in procedures (Do you already have a signal? How will you handle check ins?)

I have a little set of windchimes I ring when I want the students to clean up and come back to the carpet. I ring the chimes, then sit down and begin counting backward from 30 to give students time to appropriately clean up any work on words materials and get back to their place. 
I mention some positive behaviors I saw during the last round of Daily 5 and share some excellent work or a wonderful example with students. 
We had Title 1 teachers pushing into our classroom last year during D5, so I felt bad about having a mini-lesson and taking up their time during rounds so I generally just had students pick another choice. 
Next year, I WILL have a mini-lesson, and do a quick brain break before students choose their next choice. I spoke with the other teachers about my guilt of wasting their time and they assured me they don't care. ;o) Teacher guilt, what can you do!
 
6. Using the correct model/incorrect model approach for demonstrating appropriate behaviors. (Will you keep track of inappropriate behaviors? If they are not doing what is expected, then they are calling out for attention...what other ways can you give them some extra attention so that they can be more independent during D5?)
I can't wait to read what everyone else answers for this. I don't keep track of inappropriate behaviors during Daily 5. I mean, unless someone does something extreme like punches another student in the face. Then they obviously get in trouble. 
I model, model, model at the beginning. Then when someone is off track with behavior I call everyone back to the carpet for a new round. I give extra praise to the people exhibiting the desired behaviors. If, after a week or so when everyone else is really showing a growth in stamina, a student is still squirrely, I address their behavior individually. During a round I will sit with that student and give them a clearly defined area to work within. I have used a minute sand timer to have the student work for one minute, play with silly putty for one minute until time is up. When they have that mastered I give the student a one minute timer for using the silly putty and a two minute timer for work. Etc.