Daily 5 Saved my Year!

This year I had the pleasure to teach a 3rd/4th grade split class.  Of course this is not an easy task.  In order to be successful students need to be independent.  I will share a tool that was a huge help this year for my classroom! 

Last summer I was introduced to the Daily 5 by Gail Boushey and Joan Moser.  After reading the book I knew that I NEEDED to implement this in my classroom.  I even shared it with my co-workers and they fell in love as well.  On day 1 in my classroom I began with the Daily 5 by teaching students "Read to Self" and building their stamina.  After following the book and preparing students for the first few weeks they were ready to use this tool on their own.  

Students each got a bookmark that I found on TeachersPayTeachers.  I labeled each bookmark with numbers.  I had too many students to allow choice of their own.  I started by letting them chose and there were too many that could not successfully work together but were not willing to admit it.  When we would use Daily 5 all I had to do was tell them a number.  They could look at their bookmark and know exactly which area they should be at during this time.  

I used Daily 5 during most of the day.  My day started with Math.  One group did independent math while the other had a whole class lesson.  Then I switched.  The next portion of the morning was Reading.  I did a 45 minute whole class lesson.  After that students did 2 Daily 5 rotations while I worked with small groups as well as the Reading assistant.  In the afternoon I taught Science and Social Studies during two different time slots.  Each grade got one of these subjects each day but not both.  While working with one grade the other would be at a third Daily 5 choice.  Another time during the afternoon I did Reading Intervention.  The Intervention teacher and I each had a group that we taught for 30 minutes.  The rest of the class completed 2 more Daily 5 choices.  By the end of a good day they had completed all 5 choices unless they were working with a teacher.  This management tool was a great resource to use in my class.  It helped students to be independent so that I could continue teaching or working with a small group of students.  I also did not have to create independent work for them to do for each of these times.  

I highly recommend this tool for all classrooms!