Hedrich's Hive

I have been a big fan of the Daily 5 since Gail Boushey & Joan Moser (The Sisters) released their book.  I remember reading about them and the release of the book and ordered a copy in advance.  After I received my copy and started reading I knew instantly that it was going to change my teaching style in the classroom.  I read the book in two days and started working on changing my plans and routines that very night. 

Each year I have made changes to the Daily 5 in my classroom to reflect my schedule and my students for that year.  The best part about the Daily 5 is that it really works for any grade level, any group of students and any teacher.  A few years back our district started using a program called SRA along with our reading series StoryTown.  I was not happy at first because this meant that for the first time the children would break up into small groups and work with their SRA teacher for 1 hour.  I was worried because I was not always going to have my students with me.  I was concerned that I wouldn't have enough time when all of the children returned to our classroom.  I was definitely wrong.   I love the program and have used the Daily 5 to manage the rest of my ELA time.  The Daily 5 gives the children time to work independently, in small groups and time for one on one assessment with me.

Over the past few years I have tried a few different ways to have the children to keep track of where they should be.  Last year I came up with a new system which I really like.  Below you will see pictures of 2 of the rotation charts I give to the children. (I changed the names to my first name.)  Each child keeps their Daily 5 rotation card in their book box.  I keep miniature copies of all the cards with me so I can always keep track of where the kids should be.

Since loosing 1 hour of our ELA block to SRA I had to cut down on the rotations each week.  We do 2 rounds each day and the children will visit each station twice a week.  I also changed my Daily 5 choices.  In our classroom we do:  Read to Self, Work on Writing (W.O.W), Listening, Computers and Word Work.  We don't use Read to Someone as part of the Daily 5 because we partner read at other times.