Daily 5 in a Looping Classroom

[erinjeanna]

I'm looping with my class this year and I'm trying to figure out how to launch Daily 5! My students and I are moving from first grade to second...not sure yet if I will have any new students added to the mix. My students were very successful with Daily 5 last year, but I know I need to review the 'hows' and 'whys' in a way that will be exciting and purposeful. Any suggestions??

[Joan_Moser]

HI! With my background being in multi-age I totally understand your situation. I always like to start the year with a good review of the strategies to see what my students remember. I start out by setting up the first I-chart of Read to Self. Rather than me fill it out, I wait and see what the kids remember. Are they able to do the writing themselves? Can they help add all of the behaviors at once rather than just starting with two? Basically, the 10 Steps of Independence may go faster than you think.
Here is the tricky part. Often we think that we do not have to go through all of the 10 Steps to Independence when looping with students. Yet we always, always do! We often assume as well that our students will be able to go for much longer time right away in the fall. However, we watch as usual to be sure they are building independence correctly. They have been on break and we do not want them to practice wrong! So the long and the short of it? Basically we launch almost exactly the same way each year! Here is a link to an article talking more about it: http://www.thedailycafe.com/articles/loopinginsights-on-daily-5-in-the-second-year-with-a-class
If you are continuing on with CAFE, here are a couple of articles for that as well:
http://www.thedailycafe.com/articles/introducing-the-cafe-to-students-who-have-experience-with-the-strategies

http://www.thedailycafe.com/articles/figure-out-which-cafe-strategies-your-students-know

http://www.thedailycafe.com/articles/review-the-cafe-menu-with-guess-the-strategy