Daily 5 Book Study - Chapter 7 and a Freebie

Well, friends, after seven wonderful, collaborative weeks together, our book study has come to an end. I want to thank Kimberly from Funky First Grade Fun for hosting Chapter 7: Putting it All Together and Troubleshooting.

I want to start off by sharing this quote which "The Sisters" believe to be the "heart of choice: knowing the expectations, possessing the skills to meet them, being trusted to carry them out, and taking responsibility to do so"...isn't that what WE want from our administrators?

We know our grade level standards, have earned educational degrees in our content areas, maintain classroom structure and guidance for our students, and are held accountable so that our students succeed. We are trusted to use quality, yet challenging teaching materials as long as we follow our state-mandated curriculum. We have choice...I'm sorry if that sound soapboxish...but, it's something for me to keep in mind...

A few lingering questions I have:
I'm not sure how transient your school population is, but I had a revolving door last year...my class list did not become stable until April. How do you transition your new students to the Daily 5 structure? Do you choose partners for awhile? Do you do one-on-one mini-lessons? Since the newbies probably missed the mini-lessons and good/ not good model, I would love to hear your suggestions!

Fortunately or unfortunately, (it depends on how you look at it) I have not have any parent inquiries as to why they do not have daily worksheets that go home for literacy...yet. My student have journals, word work folders, work on writing folders, etc. to "show" their work. I just want to be proactive and not reactive if there ever was a question from a parent/ administrator. So, I found this gem from Bethany, a parent letter that informs them not only to what our students are doing during the Daily 5, but also ways they can support these same literacy activities at home:

get here

Here's a lil' something I created to assist those students that need a little more help once everyone has selected their literacy choice...and you are right in the middle of your small group lesson...and you do not want to be disturbed. Maybe they forgot how to access a website, or the volume is not right on their headphones, or they can't find the book that they were reading yesterday...enter Tech Support.

You can print these out (I would laminate them and print on card stock), punch a hole and use yarn or make a slit for a badge clip and your "tech helpers" can wear these to identify themselves to their peers.

click here to get them

Of course, I made these printer and classroom-theme friendly, but I also made some that match my new pirate theme :)

These are part of my larger packet, The Daily 5 I Can...Literacy Choice Picture Displays and More, that I have been adding to throughout our book study. I would love for you to take the time to give me your feedback if you download it on TpT :)

Over the course of our book study, I hope you were able to glean something useful for your classroom, gain a better understanding of implementing the five literacy choices, and realize that your students will succeed because they have a wonderful teacher guiding them...YOU!

As always, I welcome your questions, comments, and suggestions :)

If you want to read about the previous chapters, you can find those here: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, and Chapter 6.