Daily Five Literacy Rotation

      I introduced math rotations a few weeks ago and it has been going well, so I thought it was time to introduce the reading/writing version. The students handled it so well. They did not want to rotate out of some of the stations, and I might get to the point where we truly do the daily 5 where they can choose how long they spend in a centre but for now, 15-20 minutes is how long each rotation lasts. During the summer I won a management system from the awesome Ashlyn Ellsworth  and I use that to help my students know what station to go to.  There are 4 stations that the students rotate though, and the only one missing is "Listen to Reading". I may add that one in, as we have an awesome app for reading that I want to introduce. 

This is a picture of my rotation boards. Green and orange is math and yellow and teal is reading. You can buy a copy here

So in our rotations we go through: Read to Self, Work on Writing, Word Work, and Read to Someone. We use the acronym R.E.A.D. 

R is: Read to Self

In this station, students read to themselves and fill in a sticky note using a bookmark I adapted from Pinterest. They read and when they come to a part they want to respond to, they draw a symbol on their sticky note and leave it in their book, at the end of the session they put their sticky note into their reading response journal and write a sentence or two about what the sticky note is about. So for example if they draw a heart on their sticky, that means that they liked that part of the story. then in their journals, they write down what they liked. Some of them got it, but we will keep trying.

The E is: Exploring words

In this station students sort their words (we are using Words their Way this year for the first time) and then they do a word activity. In our first rotation we did rainbow words. 

A is for At Your Seat Writing: 

For this station the students were either working on finishing their fractured fairytales, or writing in their free-write journals. (I love how she was writing).

Finally, the D is for Duo Reading or partner reading: 

I have a few bins of books that I have put 2-3 copies of the same book in, and they can choose what books to read with a partner during this station. Eventually I will add in a response element but for now, reading together is our main goal.

I was so proud of how well they did, I can tell that last years teachers did some Daily 5 stuff, and the ones that didn't, those students caught on quickly. I am really enjoying how quickly most of them adapt and just get into the flow of the routines and expectations, and that I can trust that the majority of them are doing what they are supposed to do. It has been a great start to the year! 

Classroom Set Up Day 1

So it begins.....
I went into my class to actually do work and not just hide drop off my purchases.I usually go in the week before we officially start, but as I am going to be on vacation that week, I had wanted to come in this week. These are the before pics (not bad right?)

The back strip of lino is not waxed yet and that makes setting up a little tricky, fortunately, I have a LOT to do, so it's not that big of a deal.
I started on the library/morning meeting side of the class and organized my toys and books. I bought two 3-drawer containers to store toys (Lego, gears, Playmobile, blocks, etc) and two teal ottomans to pull double duty as seating for the special helper and as storage for my train set and little bear/puppet/barbie furniture. With those things off the shelves and everything else moved to one set of shelves, I was able to free up two more shelves for books! I am very happy about that as my books are taking over!

 After I had that organized, I started scanning my picture books and adding them to my library app!

 Now I know what books I have and won't buy duplicates. I like this app, but wish that it would read all my books, not just the ones with a "real" ISBN number. Oh well, I was able to scan in 243 books! That's probably 2/3 of my pictures books! That was a pretty big job and my back was a tad sore. So I moved on to getting some photocopying done.

I wanted to get my pirate glyph done, and I also wanted to get as much photocopying done as I could, because as the school gets more populated, the photocopier will be in high demand! Here is the fruit of my labors:

I also arranged my desks, so that I can start piling things onto them! haha

Then I went onto Pinterest and starting printing off some things that I will need for the first few weeks of school (yikes it's coming fast) I started by printing off these Daily 5 signs that I found on ladybug teacher files.

I used my circle cutter to cut them out and to mount them onto card stock. I will laminate them later this week. I really love how much these signs pop!!
So all in all, a productive day. Tomorrow, more organizing and arranging! WOOT (I guess) haha!