The Daily Five- Chapter 2

This week Kindergarten Smiles is hosting!

Chapter 2 Questions

1. Do you trust your students? How do you build this trust? Are you able to trust them and allow them to be independent throughout all aspects of your day? Are you going to be able to stay out of their way?

I do trust my students. I work very hard in the first couple months of school to establish relationships with every student and to work on them establishing relationships with each other. I make sure that they know they can come to me and tell me anything, and I listen and follow up with them on things they tell me. I feel like this means a lot to them, and to see the look on their faces when I bring something up that they had told me awhile ago, their little faces just are bursting with excitement. This all has to be done before trust in the classroom itself with academics takes place. I feel that if the students feel you have a good relationship, they will want to follow directions, and please you. However, me staying out of their way? That is going to be a tough one! I am very much the teacher who praises them and sits next to them and asks questions about what they are doing or reading. I have never done the Daily Five though, so this is going to be something that I really have to work on!

2. How much choice do you give your students throughout the day?  Do you go over your daily schedule with your students or is it just 'posted' in the room?

I am a firm believer of a daily schedule, and going over the schedule in the morning. It is amazing how much the children look at it and reference items even before they can read isn't it? I also draw pictures next to each item so that the non-readers who really cannot associate the words with the time of day yet can identify what is next. For choice, the main times in class that I allow them to make choices is math time. This is after they complete their classwork, they may choose a math game or to work on their differentiated math packet. When I think of it, the choices in my classroom have almost always been when they are done with the main item assigned. The Daily Five will definitely be different for me, however it is going to be a welcome change!

3. How are you going to create that sense of community where students will hold each other accountable?

I find that it is important to model how to hold someone accountable, as in the polite way, and the not-so-polite way. Often times the children will laugh at the not-so-polite way because it is so far off from how most of them act, however it does it home with some.  It is important to directly teach kinders how to approach someone who is not following along, and the correct way to encourage them to get back on task. I praise children who are polite to each other and it really catches on like wild fire. Can you imagine a polite class? :)

4. Student ownership in learning? How do you instill this in every child?

I completely agree with the sisters in explaining why we do certain assignments. I have to admit I am not wonderful at it, and I need to work on this area. I think it is going to be important to explain to them so that they do have buy in, and start getting internally motivated to make choices during the Daily Five.

5. Stamina! How are you going to build stamina with reading? independent work? Will you use a timer? Will you set goals?

I definitely will be using a timer, and going veryyyyy slow. My goals will start out with very small amounts of time, and there will be a lot of praise and reports to parents! We will set daily goals and work up to a weekly goal. ( however weekly goals are hard for kinders to grasp )

Next week we go back to Live, Love, Laugh Kindergarten for Chapter 3. Link up if you are reading!!! I would love to hear your thoughts!