Ms. A to Z: Daily 5

I know I'm slightly late to the game on this one but I have something to confess: I HATE WRITING ANSWERS TO DISCUSSION QUESTIONS!!

Phew. I feel better.

I don't answer questions well. Anyone who has ever interviewed me can attest to this. I ramble incoherently until something falls out and I end up asking, "What was the question again?"

Moreover, I'd rather talk with someone. My (super awesome) teacher for literacy in my graduate program would say, "It takes two people to read a book."

Chapter 1 of the Daily 5 is something I did on my own. I read it on my own. I took notes on it on my own. I thought about it on my own. I printed out the discussion questions as things to think about and my brain said, "This is homework! Abort! Abort!"

(And, yes, I know that this isn't mandatory.)

But I want this. I want to read and discuss and learn. So I need to change how I go about this book study. Fortunately, I have a fabulous friend in my building who is also doing the blog book study. (I'm looking at you, Dia-buddy. We're making a date next week to talk about Chapter 2.)

At this point, Chapter 1 has come and gone. To gear up for it, I read stuff from everyone else to give me things to think about. Here we go!

Teaching New Behaviors and Expectations

This is something I really want to work on in my classroom. I don't do nearly enough modeling or reinforcing. Figure 1-1 (p. 7-9) was a wake up call. It felt like a Cosmo Quiz: Which Daily 5 Teacher are You?" If you circled mostly A's then you are a First Year Teacher! (Full disclosure: I just finished my second year overall and my first year in K.)

I spent way too much time on this.
And yes. That's me. In the words of the esteemed LMFAO, "I'm sexy and I know it."

Any way...

I loved how Little Miss Kindergarten summed this up with the gradual release model:

Step 1. Model
"I do, you watch."
Step 2. Guided Practice
"I do, you help."
Step 3. Independent Practice
"You do, I help."
Step 4. "You do, I watch.

My biggest downfall is not immediately correcting old behaviors. A little one slips through and then soon I have chaos. My expectations for behavior are very high. My kiddos are constantly told how awesome they are in the hallways and at specials. But behind closed doors, things get hectic.

Whose Classroom is it?

This one is probably 50/50. My students are very independent. They know where stuff is located and how to put it back. Their biggest hurdle is that their teacher's desk area is probably a fire marshal's worst nightmare. Poor babies. If they could find it they could use it!

I also have no storage in my room. No cabinets. No shelves. No closet. It's a big, empty rectangle. That means I have stacks of buckets in the back of the room. Right now I live in an apartment that is already full to the brim. Seriously, our spare closets stack to the ceiling. When we have a house, I won't have to keep so much of my classroom stuff in my classroom. Or maybe the cabinet fairy will come.

As far as stations go, I am this person that The Sister's talk about on pages 4 and 5:

Clusters working on worksheets
Stacks of "things" our children had done during literacy time
Things used to keep children busy while we attempted to work with a few small groups and individuals
Stopping to tidy and restock materials
Dreading the next weekend when we would spend so much time to create more centers for the kids to help keep them busy
Majority of time spent on preparing for and reviewing busy work
Not enough time for small groups because of constant management

Locus of Control/Behavior Management

Stickers. Behavior chart. Classroom group rewards. Bribes. Bargains. Pleading. $2.50 drafts at Houlihan's on Thursday nights. (Okay that last one was for me.) Lots of, "If you do X you will earn Y!"

I do a lot of talking but it's mostly with my kids. If we're trying out a new routine we work out expectations together on an anchor chart and review them. Then we try it out. When we're finished, we all come back together and talk about what went well, what needs to be fixed or reinforced, and what my part will be in those changes. We review them... but not as often as we need to.

Reflection

The biggest lesson for me was that I was keeping my students "busy". We just want them to do something so we can do something else. I am committed to stopping this. I spend way too much time putting out small fires and so little time working with small groups. I need to move along the continuum from "teacher driven" to "student driven" and that takes trust.

If you read all of my rambling, kudos. And I appreciate it. I would love for you to follow me and leave comments, especially with questions or suggestions.

I can't wait for Chapter 2.

-Ms. A

So it's now been over a month since my last post.

Our last day was May 23rd and summer school started on May 29th. I have twelve of my nineteen kids for summer school which is nice. I love my babies. I'm still adjusting to my new ones. My kids are very independent and I guess I took that for granted in a big way!

I finally found out that I have a job for next year though I haven't been told what grade yet. I feel like I'm wasting so much time I could use to prepare for next year. I don't even know when I'll know.

There are lots of changes going on at school and there are many things in the air or unknown altogether.

Big, deep breaths.

I've been doing some deeper digging into Common Core and it's giving me all kinds of anxiety. "Common Core Standards" is not even something I've heard the administration at my school say. We're supposed to start the transition this year. I have several colleagues in other districts who are planning PD and workshops and yada yada yada! AHHHHH!

BIG. DEEP. BREATHS.

Silver lining time: Because of the less-than-stellar support from those above, I've found that I have some really talented and creative coworkers who are just as eager as I am to grow professionally and create positive change in our school and for our kiddos.

My Firstie friend and I are gearing up for The Daily 5 book study over at Live, Love, Laugh Everyday in Kindergarten. I'm getting pretty excited about it. I've kind of read through Daily 5 before but it was a "required read". As I was just beginning my Master's program at the same time, I wasn't terribly motivated. Now that I'm choosing to read it, I'm really soaking up every word. I PICK indeed!

A lovely fellow K teacher sent me the document below. It's from the International Reading Association's (IRA) annual conference. It's about the Daily 5! So well timed! It's FREE and also very cute... So grab it up!