Hey
Everyone! If you haven’t joined the Daily 5 book study, it’s not too late. This
week Caitlyn, from Kindergarten Smiles, posted about chapter two. Each Thursday the host for the next chapter
will post questions for you before reading and also allow for you to ask
questions in the comments. The following Wednesday, that blogger will post
answers to that week’s questions and a reflection of that chapter. You will
have an opportunity to link up each week too so the learning will continue to
spread online. This is very exciting! So, let’s get to chapter two’s questions.
1. Do
you trust your students? How do you build this trust? Are you able to trust
them and allow them to be independent throughout all aspects of your day? Are
you going to be able to stay out of their way?
For the most part, I trust my students.
There are always a few who seem to need redirecting though. I’m hoping that
through this study I can learn to have my students be more independent and
self-monitoring, and then trust will feel more natural. I know that it will
take a lot of work and a lot of modeling and practicing. Hopefully we can get
to a point where I can trust that if someone gets on task, their peers will be
able to point them back in the right direction by reminding them what they are
supposed to be doing or by referring them back to anchor charts.
2. How much choice do you give your students throughout the day?
Do you go over your daily schedule with your students or is it just 'posted' in
the room?
Not
much. We’ve been doing centers, so while I have a reading group at my table, my
kids go to other assigned centers. I think choice will be good for the students
and get them motivated, but I know it will need to be done in a very controlled
way. I haven’t decided completely if I will switch completely to daily 5 yet (I
want to complete the book study before I decide) but if I don’t and stick with
centers I’m going to work on providing more choice within the centers.
3. How are you going to create that sense of community where
students will hold each other accountable?
I
think it’s really important to build community at the beginning of the year and
to include students in the decision making right away. Working together to come
up with class rules, routines and procedures helps students to take ownership
for “their class” I’m really hoping that the students will step up to the plate
too keep accountable themselves and their classmates.
4. Student ownership in learning? How do you instill this
in every child?
Making sure the kids know “why” they
are doing something is so important! The more you share with them the why, the
more they will view it as important. When you keep that from them (or forget or
run out of time) then only YOU know why it’s important. They don’t. I always
start out at the beginning of the year making sure my students know the why
behind everything we do, but as the year goes on I start to slack… this year I
want to stay on top of it, all year!
5. Stamina! How are you going to build stamina with reading?
independent work? Will you use a timer? Will you set goals?
I’ll definitely use a timer, and set
goals! Our first day I will time the students to see how long they can go.
Afterwards we will discuss and set a goal for next time. The next day we will
try to meet that goal. As time goes on, our goals will grow and eventually we’ll
be working towards our full amount of time. I want to make sure my kids
understand the word stamina this year too. It’s a word I’ve never used before
in the classroom, but it’s so important that kids have it and that they learn
to let it grow!
Next
week we are heading back over to Tammy's blog to discuss Chapter 3! I am
excited to move on to the different areas of Daily 5 and how to implement them!
I agree that it is SO, SO, SO important to come up with class rules, procedures, and routines together in a class. This definitely gives the kids more ownership in the class; thus, giving a sense of community! Thanks for linking up! Loved reading your post!
ReplyDeleteCaitlin
Kindergarten Smiles
Rachelle, I am completely with you on not being 100% sure whether I'll use D5 (but if I don't - I know I will incorporate certain things)..... I currently use Debbie Diller-style workstations and they word soooo well. Ugggh it's hard giving up something that works.... but there are things about D5 that I desire too.... I'm waiting till the end to decide!
ReplyDeletejeannie
Kindergarten Lifestyle