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Tuesday 21 February 2012

Snow Day and Blah-ness

So today we had a snow day, not the fabulous, go-back-to-bed kind, but the no children kind. It was nice to not have to worry about getting there on time (roads were pretty slippery) but bittersweet, since this is my last full week with my kidlets. I'm meeting with their "real" teacher tomorrow to go over some things before she comes back half-time next week and full time in April after Spring Break.

At least today gave me some time to catch up on my dreaded marking and packing up some of my non-essentials. I really hate the teaching market here right now. It's so hard when there are few jobs, and it takes so long to get something real. I've worked in 4 divisions in the past 5 years, and never a full school year in the same place. I'm feeling done with waiting. I love what I do, I just want to be able to do it. Sigh.

Monday 6 February 2012

Daily 5 Continued

Hello again!

Here are some of the things I wanted to share with Daily 5. The first isn't a new idea, but I love it! Here is my Boggle board.




If you are looking for "my" Boggle sheet, a big thank you to (and go visit) mrsrojasteaches.com/2011/08/boggle-board-w-printable.html.

I also got the letters for my Boggle board from somewhere but can't find the link! Hopefully I can find it soon.

Below is my Daily 5 bulletin board.



There are a couple neat features on my bulletin board. Under Work on Words, I have some binder rings with different activities students can do with their spelling words (I am not a big fan of bought spelling units, especially American ones with the wrong spellings, but the teacher I replaced does them and I wanted some things to stay consistent for my kiddos). During Work on Words, students can work on spelling, do Boggle, or do one of the flip book activities.

The second part of my Daily Five board is Work on Writing. Underneath our I-chart is a repurposed pencil holder. It holds popsicle sticks with writing topics that my students have come up with on them. If anyone is stuck, they can grab a topic. I want to add another pencil holder for blank popsicle sticks so they can add to our collection. Under our Read to Self header I have some book review pages so students can recommend books to each other.

Right now we are basically doing the "Daily 4", since we don't really do Listen to Reading except for when we Read with Someone. I went to a workshop a little while ago where the presenter talked about doing Listen to Reading as a whole class using audio books. May have to try it out one of these days.

The other big feature of my Daily 5 is my clip-chart. Students move their clothespin onto the Daily 5 section they're doing. Gives me a quick way to record or see what kids are doing without having to stop and ask all the time.

Sunday 5 February 2012

Daily 5

I know that the Daily Five is one of the big movements out there and there are lots of different blog posts and great ideas, but I wanted to share my experience with it as well. This is my first year implementing the Daily 5. I will say it straight-up, my implementation isn't exactly what the Sisters probably expect. But...my kids love it. Like, absolutely, can-we-give-up-Math/Science/SS/RecessGym-and-do-our-Daily-5 love it. I am not as strict as I should be when it comes to shutting down our work when there is a disruption, but they do pretty well anyway. I wanted to share some pictures, but don't have any today, so it will have to wait until tomorrow when I head back to school! I'll share more Daily 5 then!

Happy Monday! Have a great week at school everyone!