Book Bags

Since I started Daily 5 after the school year started I wasn't able to get individual book boxes. We have to have our orders in by the end of the previous school year if we want anything. All I had was 14 cardboard book boxes, which was not enough for all my students. My original plan was to have them share a book box with another student that was similar to their reading level. After seeing how Daily 5 works and the importance of choosing a spot away from other kids I knew sharing a book box would not work. One of my classmates mentioned that her school used storage bags their first year. You can get three storage bags for $1.00 at the Dollar Tree. They only had large and extra-large bags so I decided to get the large ones. These bags have been working perfectly! The kids are only supposed to have 3-5 books in their and can change their books out at the beginning of the day. We keep the bags in the boxes I had already planned to use so they can find their bag easily. Of course the bags are not a perfect fit and it looks a bit messy, but so far it is working out perfectly!

TIM Model Lessons

I've been using this blog a lot for classes lately and so the trend will continue. For the past couple of weeks I've been working on writing five lessons where technology is integrated into my classroom. I will admit some of the lessons appear to be a bit weak on the technology side. After writing my lessons and reviewing how the technology was being used I placed each lesson into a cell on the Technology Integration Matrix. It is a really neat interactive matrix that allows you to focus on where your lessons are at currently and what you would need to take them to the next level. I've taken three of my lessons to the next level for this assignment. All five lessons are located on a Google Doc that I created. I hope you enjoy them and let me know what you think!

Our Expectations

When I read in the book that you meet before and after each Daily 4 session I thought that all these meetings would be redundant and the kids would get bored with them. So far I haven't seen any signs of boredom. In face the kids love to come back together after Daily 4 and fill in our graph, even if only one kid gets to do it. I think reviewing the expectations is good for them. We made a T chart of what is expected of them as well as the teacher. I have this hung on our bulletin board so that I refer to them at any time and the kids can see them if they need a reminder. Here is what we put on our T chart.

Student Responsibilities
Read you book
Read quietly
Be respectful
Pick a spot that lets us do our best
Pick the right book
Sound out words we don't know
Use context clues to help you with words

Teacher Responsibilities
Work with students