Blasting Off the Year with High Flying Ideas

Welcome to our back to school blog hop! I hope you have gotten some great tips for back to school. If you're just starting out, make sure to head over to Andrea's blog (Reading Toward the Stars) where the hop begins! 

I don't have my own group of kids anymore (Title I Reading), but I have been lucky that some of my co-workers let me come into their classrooms to start CAFE lessons and help prepare the students for Daily 5 (or 3 in some of our upper grades classrooms). We are now entering our third year of full implementation for Daily 5 and CAFE, and I just have a few quick tips for starting it in your own class!

• I recommend starting with read to self. Use the T charts they discuss in the book, then have EVERYONE practice it together, then come back and discuss what worked/didn't work. 
• Don't get discouraged when your kids only have a stamina of 1 minute. Chart it and celebrate growth! They have to start somewhere, and they will get there!
• Get the kids into "Good Fit Books" as quickly as possible! I know at the beginning, you're just trying to get them to read quietly while you work on running records and other beginning of the year assessments, but the faster you can do this, the easier it will be for them to build their stamina. 
• Once they have the hang of "Read to Self", go ahead and introduce the other stations the same way. I would have everyone do the same thing until they are all used to each station.
• Use your own judgement for whether you will give student choice or assign stations. Some classes are ready for it from the beginning. Others need a lot more guidance. Trust your gut, and remember you can always change it if it's not working for you!
• Have some kind of "assessment" for the stations to make sure they are on task. Since I work with struggling readers, I have MANY students who "read to self" without actually understanding a single word. Have them do a quick reading reflection or a sticky note summary...something to help hold them accountable. It doesn't have to be a grade, but it's important for them to know that this isn't just a time for them to sit quietly and pretend to be a good student.

There are SO many facets of Daily 5/CAFE! This is only scraping the top. Fortunately there are a ton of resources out there (and btw, they should all be free on TPT, so don't worry about paying for them). If you haven't already read the book, that's the best place to start. The sisters really break everything down into a very manageable and easy-to-follow format. I keep my book close-by to refer to even after 3 years!

Keep on moving to Jennie's blog for more tips to start the year off right!

Tell me something good

This time of of the year can be a very tiring time, or at least it is for me. I don't like cold weather (fortunately there hasn't been much of that here), and I hate that the sun is already down so early. I thrive during the warmer months and just survive the winter usually. After Christmas, give me one good snow and make sure the groundhog doesn't see his shadow. Anyway, as usual, Jennifer at Rowdy in First Grade has perfect timing with her monthly linky. This has become one of my favorite, and I think it's so important to focus on the positives. If you haven't ever participated, I'd encourage you to do so!

Something good from home: We got a new sectional for Christmas and bought Keagan a toy box. Now that Christmas decorations have been taken down, the living room looks SO much more organized! One of my unofficial New Year's resolutions was to actually keep the house clean. It's been clean a lot more than usual, at least. The toy box helps a lot because we're actually able to consolidate the space that his toys take up. Plus it's a lot quicker to pick everything up. Oh, and he's LOVING all of his new toys from Christmas, especially his kitchen. I'm starting to see him mimic us. He likes to "feed" us, although I've also seen him "feed" the dogs (he LOVES his dogs), so I may stop actually putting the spoon in my mouth!

Something good from school: I mentioned this in an earlier post, but I'm actually starting a version of Daily 5 in my classroom! As a Title I teacher pushing in and pulling out, I didn't think I'd be able to make it work. However, I wanted to do more individual conferencing and decided I would have them put together book bags (right now they're just Ziploc baggies) to do Read to Self. I think I'm going to also add Word Work and Work on Writing. For 30 minute blocks about 3 times a week, I think that will be perfect. Then I can do other lessons/activities for the other days. I'm excited!

What's your "something good" right now?

***Quick Update***

The lovely ladies from Sister Teachers are hosting their 300 follower giveaway, which I am a part of! If you would like another chance to win my Winter Literacy Centers, one of those pencil sharpeners, or one of the other great prizes being offered, go check it out!!

Daily 5 a little late

We're almost halfway through the year, and I'm just getting started on Daily 5. Since I'm the Title I reading specialist now, I wasn't quite sure of the best way to do this. Actually, I didn't think I could. I've been doing lessons and activities that are for the entire group and working that way. Now that I've been at this job for a few months, though, I decided it was time to try it out. 

So today I had my students come in and find books that were on their reading level (or one above or below). They grabbed 1-3 since I don't have them for long, and most of them were really excited to put together a book bag. We don't have any nice bags or baskets yet, but I (well, actually my wonderful para) just labeled gallon size Ziploc bags and put them in containers based on their group. Then I can pull out each container at the beginning and let them find their bag.

My plan is that I'll do read to self, work on writing, and word work as my centers (since my classes are so small and time is limited), and I'll try them 2 or 3 times a day. Then I want to do whole group lessons to review the new skills they're working on or to work on test-taking strategies. I'm about to lose my para for a few weeks because she's having surgery, so I'll be on my own for a little while. I think this system will help with that, though. Then when she comes back, I'm going to have her help me either pull kids or help with the word work station.

What do you do for word work with the upper grade students? I have kids ranging from level I-Q that I see, and they are from grades 3-5. I was thinking prefixes and suffixes for my higher 4th and 5th grade students. Then for my lower ones, I want them to practice a LOT of decoding strategies. Any recommendations?

What I'm doing for Christmas

We've been busy in my Title I class recently, and even though I'm missing out on all the fun crafts and activities that I did/would do as a classroom teacher, I've still been able to fit in some fun literacy centers.

I've also had the pleasure of pushing into the same 3rd grade class every day for the past week and a half to work with them on Daily 5/CAFE lessons. That's been so much fun to me! I got to help train on all of that this summer, but I never got a good opportunity to do it since we only piloted it last year and I was out on maternity leave for part of that time. Tomorrow will be my last day to push in though, but I think we're going to do two activities with the Polar Express for those two days. We're already working on Read to Self for Daily 5, and they will hopefully be able to start Read to Someone next week. In CAFE, we added Activate Prior Knowledge (where I taught them my favorite word: schema!), Check for Understanding, Find Good Fit Books (with IPICK), and Use the Pictures. Today We're going to do Back up and Reread. They're so excited about it!

Now back to Christmas:

I said I've been doing literacy centers, and it's been so much fun. The kids remember the format for most of the centers from my Thanksgiving pack that we did. So there's less set up and explaining required. I just focus on the new centers to talk them through. Fifth grade has already started them, and I'm noticing some improvement. 3rd and 4th will start either today or next week.

With my younger kids, I focused on the book The Great Christmas Crisis by Kim Norman.

If you remember this post, she was the author we had come visit back in early November. Anyway, I created a packet based on the book.

It had two little activities that I used as centers (one for sequencing and one game using words from the book). There's also a cute writing activity that I may let them do tomorrow. I'll even let them color and decorate their elves if they finish the writing! Here's a sample of that.

I have also completed my winter literacy centers. These are the same format as the Christmas ones, just without the Polar Express sequencing. 4 comprehension centers and 4 word-knowledge.

What are you doing in your class right now? Or are you allowed to do Christmas-y activities?

Tell me something good linky

I'm back! This week has been crazy. Tuesday night was Back to School Night, so I was at school until 8:00. Then during school I have begun giving running records to any students who failed the SOLs (Standards of Learning) or were below grade level on their word lists. I've given the first running record to all of 3rd and 4th grade, and today I need to start 5th. Then I have to go back and retest the students who were at frustrational. Thank God that Fountas & Pinnell assessments are pretty short!

So far, I've identified 9 kids in 3rd grade and way too many in 4th. This stresses me out because my numbers should get smaller as the kids get older. Right now, my 4th grade list could easily be 14 kids...craziness!! Oh, and did I mention their levels range from G to Q (Q's failed the SOLs, so I have to pull them until they show improvement)? Today the focus is on 5th grade.

Okay, enough focus on the stresses. I think it's perfect timing for this linky party that Jennifer from Rowdy in First Grade is hosting.

My Something Good From School: 

I have almost finished giving at least one running record to all of my "at-risk" kids! Now I'm just going back and giving another one to students who were at a frustrational level. One of the reasons this has gone so smoothly is because my wonderful parapro has been helping me. I trained her on giving running records (and taking lots of notes), and she's pulling half of the kids. Then all I have to do is grade it!

Also, we have started fully implementing Daily 5 and CAFE, and from walking around the school, I have seen a lot of great instruction and practicing!

My Something Good From Home:  

My sweet little boy, Keagan, can now sit himself up, pull up, and get around very well. He's still not officially crawling, but he sometimes army crawls. His preferred method is still the rolling pin, but I think he will be crawling any day now! Oh, and we lowered his bed this week to stay safe!

Another big plus is that we get to go to the beach this weekend! It's going to be a little cooler, but it will be nice to get away and relax for a little while.

Go link up!