The Brown Bag Teacher

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1st Week of Daily 5 Choices

If you’ve read my blog before, you probably know that I use a Daily 5 structure to organize our reading time. I love the freedom, choice, and time spent reading/writing it offers my students. One of the most common questions/comments is “My students can’t handle choice. I’m doing Daily 5 just without the choice. My kids aren’t ready for it this year.” While I totally respect teachers doing what works best for their class rooms, I wanted to share what our 1st week of choice looks like. It takes us 7 ish weeks to make it to choice and it is ALL about training, practice, and modeling up to launching choice. (If you’re interested in learning about the training leading up to choice, read more about that here.)

The first day of choice is a very special one. Students have NO idea that choice is even an option and I do a very dramatic reveal. “Friends, you all have been working SO hard for the last 6 weeks to become better readers and writers. I have watched you put first things first to work hard and focus on your learning. Today is a very special day because it is the day where you will start to make the best reading choices for you! Today will be your first day of Daily 5 choices.” <insert cheers, clapping, and giggles>

Do you do a mini-lesson?

Our Daily 5 block typically starts with a quick review of our high-frequency words and then, a mini-lesson. (Note the first week of choice, I do not do any mini-lessons. I only introduce choice, reflection sheets, and our SMART Board chart).

After the first day of choice, I pick-up our normal mini-lessons. Last week we were learning all about main idea. We used Simply Creative Teaching’s Main Idea Mystery Bags to launch our study of main idea! Each bag contained 4 details and students had to infer the main idea of the story being told. In between each round of choice, we pulled the details out of 2 bags!

In between each round of our Daily 5 choices, we do a quick mini-lesson. Typically, I fit in 2-3 reading mini-lessons a day. The first mini-lesson is comprehension focused, the second is phonics focused, and the third mini-lesson is typically writing/sharing based. If students would like to share their work during a rotation, they bring it to the carpet as a signal to me that they would like to share.

How do you mange choices?

After a 10-12 mini-lesson, we use our SMART Board to make choices. Each student is assigned a Guided Reading color. When they see their color under my name (Ms. W) they know I’ve made their choice for them. If not, I call students up (by reading group) to quickly make choices. Students have to know what choice they are going to make before they get up to the board. If they get to the board and are clueless they sit back down until everyone else has made a choice. Right now, making choices take 2-3 minutes, eventually we will get it down to a minute or so. The numbers under each choice represent the number of students that can be at each choice each time.

(Unfortunately due to tricky technology and the fact that I don’t personally own SMART Board technology – my district does – I’m not able to share this file. If you are interested in making your own, it’s simple. Insert a table and then, insert one text book for every student’s name.)
As students make their choices, they color their choice on their Daily 5 schedule. This schedule helps keep us on track and helps me know that friends are still visiting each rotation throughout the week. (Note – based on their reading group, students do have minimum requirements for the number of times they have to visit each different rotation. My lowest group of friends have to visit Lexia – a district online reading program – every day. Every students has to visit Read to Self every single day.)
When calling groups, I always call my teacher table first. I have the materials already set out on my guided-reading tables, so students can get to work right away. The book I place out is one we read in the past few days, so they have a chance to practice the skills we’ve be working on while I am monitoring choices being made. 

What are students doing while you are teaching Guided Reading?

Every student is expected to visit Read to Self/Friend every.single.day. Research repeatedly says the best way for students to grow as readers is to read more. Each day I aim for 45 minutes of reading time. 20-25 minutes of this 45 minutes comes from our Daily 5 time. Students are expected to have their Book Bin with them, and they are also welcome to pull 1 or 2 books from our themed bookshelf (to see some of our themed bookshelves search #1stGradeBookshelf on Instagram). 

When students arrive at Word Work, they have several choices. This week our choices included blends pocket chart sort, pyramid writing, super sentences, versatiles (short vowels), and a write-the-room (short u words). We also really enjoy Big Book Hunts (looking for specific grammar and phonics skills), as well as, Sentence Scramble. To read more about Word Work, read this blog post.

Listening to Reading (especially this early in the year) is one of the favorite Daily 5 choices. Listening to Reading offers students the opportunity to enjoy books they might not be able to read independently. Additionally, emerging readers need to hear fluent readers. Most importantly, read alouds foster kids who LOVE reading!  (Note – I used to use headphones at Listening to Reading, but it was a mess. Now, students can use the iPods at Level 3/4 somewhere on the floor and it works so well!)

After students listen to their book, they head back to the Listening to Reading station and grab the colored folder that matches their reading group. In each folder is a differentiated graphic organizer. Right now, we are working on quick summaries so I pulled out our Book Reviews. This is the yellow graphic organizer. The green group (below grade level) has students illustrate their ideas and the blue (above grade level) includes an additional section asking for adjectives to describe the book!

Work on Writing is the very last choice I introduce. I know the Sisters recommend introducing it as the 2nd choice, I hold off until I have explicitly taught my 1st graders how to write in their writing journals, introduced a visual rubric, brainstormed ideas for writing, and know that they are able to write 3-4 sentences independently. This year, Work on Writing was introduced during Week 6, one week before launching choice. Therefore, it is still a *very* popular choice! During our Work on Writing time, students apply the skills they have been learning in Writing Workshop (Narrative Writing right now), as well as, write about their reading.

As students make each of their choices, they color the coordinating day’s label. As you can see, this Monday we only made it to 3 longer rounds. Many days when I only make it to 3 rounds, I alternate meeting with my 2 above-grade level reading groups.

At the very end of our Daily 5 book, we do Plus/Delta for the day. This gives me the chance to quickly reflect with every student and plan with students who struggle. I give students the plus and delta sentence stems (Plus – Today I learned…  Delta = Tomorrow I need to…). Students are welcome to deviate, but it allows students to complete the Plus/Delta independently. Honestly, we do this process *quickly* and quietly. As soon as students finish, students grab their snack and gather on the carpet for a read-aloud. All-in-all, reflection in the early weeks (Weeks 1-4) takes 7-8 minutes. Once we become faster at it, we can streamline the process into 4-5 minutes. Boom!

So, give it to me straight – The Nuts and Bolts of Choice 

Friends, this is the first week of choice. This year choice took a few weeks longer and it wasn’t until Week 9 (last week) that we really hit our stride with it.

  1. Choice is a privilege. Students may lose this choice when they are not working to become better readers and writers. 
  2. During the first week of choice, I introduce NOTHING new. Every Word Work choice, Listening to Reading choice, Work on Writing choice has been previously introduced and practiced. (Note – the words for Work Word and the books for Listening to Reading do change, but the skills/activities do not.)
  3. In between each round of choice, we meet on the carpet for a mini-lesson. I am flexible in the mini-lessons for the first week because sometimes we will need to reflect on the round if it didn’t go smoothly. Use the power of group brainstorming to make choice go more smoothly. 
  4. Be POSITIVE. Choice is a huge step and there will be *many* things to fix. Pick the most important battles and make a list of the rest. Highlight and focus on the positive. All students want to be the student who wants is bragged on…so brag!  
  5. Even in Week 3 of choice, we are still tweaking the choice process. Every group of friends will be different…but with the right amount of practice and modeling, students are capable…even 1st graders. Have faith and take deep breaths! 
Is choice a part of your Daily 5 routine right now? What is working for you and your classrooms? I’m always looking for ways to build independence and would love to hear your ideas!

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Comments

  3. DE says

    November 2, 2015 at 8:36 pm

    Love this! Thank you for the thorough explanation of how you run your Daily 5 activities. Can you share the mini lessons you use for sight words?

    Reply

  4. Unknown says

    November 2, 2015 at 10:47 pm

    I am curious about your blends word paper under the guided reading text. Did you create those yourself or is that a unit on TPT? I would love to incorporate those into guided reading. BTW, I have purchased many of your TPT files and enjoy reading your blog. Thank you for sharing your talent and passion with us!!

    Reply

  6. Petra Korevaar says

    November 21, 2015 at 5:02 pm

    Hi Catherine,

    I was looking around the internet for ways to organized my reading workshop. I noticed you went from centres (in grade 5) to the daily 5 (in Grade 1). I realize much of it has to do with school standards and expectations but which do you prefer? I am currently teaching grade 5 and am trying to transition but can't seem to decide. Any suggestions?

    Reply

    • Kate says

      November 25, 2015 at 11:11 pm

      Hi Maria! Yes, my friends carry them or they can put them in their book bins. I do expect that students color their choices each round and by our reflection time, all 4 choices should be complete!

      Reply

  9. hmj0003 says

    May 13, 2016 at 11:31 pm

    Hi Catherine!
    I was just wondering,
    how do you make sure that your students visit all of the stations each week? or do you? i am just thinking that some of my kiddos may choose one of the choices multiple times and never go to one of the others. What do you ?

    Thanks!
    Holly

    Reply

  10. Karen says

    June 2, 2017 at 8:03 pm

    How long do you allocate for this each day? Looks fantastic, but I think I might struggle to fit 5 activities every day along with all the other curriculum requirements!

    Reply

    • Catherine says

      June 10, 2017 at 4:45 pm

      My entire reading block runs 2 hours, that includes all the mini-lessons and Guided Reading groups.

      Reply

  11. Kaylee says

    January 3, 2018 at 5:47 pm

    Hi Catherine! I am so interested in how you have scheduled your day and how you manage your Daily 5 rotations. This is something I am constantly struggling with in my own first grade classroom. My day is much more broken up than yours, making it difficult to schedule large chunks of time. One question I still have is do your students make a new rotation choice on the chart each time you meet back on the carpet or are the choices more free flowing? For example, do they finish an activity and automatically choose a new one or do they have to stick with each activity for a length of time? I would love more information on this. Thank you!

    Reply

    • Catherine says

      January 17, 2018 at 12:07 am

      Hey Kaylee, They are free-flowing. When students finish, they make a new choice. If we meet on the carpet and they need to continue with a choice, they join us for a mini-lesson and return to their original choice! Some activities or projects may only take a few minutes but others might take 60-75 minutes!

      Reply

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