I tried the Daily 5 last year and it worked great! I felt like I had control over the classroom and the children were constantly engaged! I had to tailor it to fit my group of children and this is a partial reprint from another post to show you what I ended up with!
I have 5 groups:
Read to Self
Word Work
Listening Center
Computer Center
Teacher Table.
I divided the students into 5 leveled groups. Some groups have four, three or two in a group. They go to TWO centers per day. It works out that each student is coming to my table every two days. I made a small section on a bulletin board with the centers labeled and attached to the board. It is in a pocket chart, but I stapled it directly to the board. I gave each group a number. I rotate the numbers each morning.
So it looks like this:
Read to Self 1
Word Work 2
Listening Center 3
Computer Center 4
Teacher Table 5
On Monday, Group 1 will go to Read to Self for the first 21 minutes and then to Word Work for the second 21 minutes. On Tuesday they will start at the Listening Center and the move to Computers. On Wednesday they are at the Teachers table and back to Read to Self.
On Tuesday morning, I will move the numbers like this:
Read to Self 4
Word Work 5
Listening Center 1
Computer Center 2
Teacher Table 3
I told the children that I would NOT move the numbers during Small Group Reading, but we would all know to drop down to the next center at the chime. The first day one of my girls went over to "help" me move the numbers and the rest of the class jumped all over her - NOT to move it during SGR. I have so many "helpers."
I have 45 small cubbie boxes in my room. Twenty are for their backpacks and Basal books and the rest are for storage. I cleared a row of five and made a box for each group. I have group one's sight word cards, leveled readers, fluency check sheets... and so on in THEIR cubbie. Group two does not need all of that, they have their guided reader books and a different set of fluency packets...
I love sitting at the half moon table and being able to turn around and EVERYTHING I need for that group at my fingertips! It has really worked so much better than last year!
I spent the first few weeks teaching "Read to Self", listening center, word work! When we divide up into groups, the talking is minimal and everyone is actively engaging in reading!! My principal would be so proud!
Please join the LINKY PARTY at Lory's Page for more ideas and inspiration!!
Added Information:
Starting on the first day of school, I introduced Read to Self. At meet the teacher, I had the students place 3-4 books into their book box. On the first day, I showed them the different places around the room they could sit (pillows, bean bags, fun chairs, under desk...) I went over the rules (making an anchor chart) and let them read for 3 minutes. We put everything up and then did it again after lunch for 3 minutes. If anyone talked, we cleaned up early. I do not remember stopping early on the first day, but we did end early on the second and third day because someone was talking. This sound harsh, but they learn quickly your rules and what is and isn't acceptable.
Mrs. Bainbridge also has a great resource of information on getting started.
