Daily 5 by by Gail Boushey and Joan Moser Chapter 1 & 2

On pages 4-6, the authors present two different pictures of their classrooms.  In thinking about and reflecting on your own practice, how would you characterise your literacy block?  Does it look more like the first or second scenario, or is it somewhere in between?

At the moment I would characterise my literacy block in between the two. I don’t have ‘busy work’ or sheets for students however I still have to move around the class to redirect some students. I don’t have to do this as often as I was in the first week of Daily5. I think this is also part of the students testing the boundaries of me as a new teacher.

I know I still have a lot of work to bring the children up to the second scenario but with practice and consistency then the classroom will get there as they know what I expect from them.

I plan on using the tools (computers and iPods) that I already have in the classroom to meet the second scenario and I am still finding word work and work on writing activities that actually engage the students and draw on their interests.

What goals do you have for your classroom as you work to implement the principles and foundations of the Daily 5 discussed in chapter 2?  What support do you need to do this?

My first goal is to implement choice, at the moment the children have the choice between two activities for thirty minutes once the buzzer goes off they choose from another two. I would like to change this so that they have a choice and they decide when to change so that I am not interrupting if they are engaged in something. At this stage I don’t think I need any support to implement it, I think I need to trial it to see how children respond to it.

My second goal is to instil a sense of urgency in students and having them take responsibility for their own learning. Some children do have this however others are more focused on just getting through the activity. The support I think I need for this would be, how do I instil this (where do I start) when children understand why they do something but don’t really care?