This chapter scared the bejeezus out of me! The first day!!!!!! Are you kidding me?!?! I usually let them explore the classroom library & observe them picking out their books for their bins. I also let them read just to see how much stamina they have without them knowing I am timing them. 
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This is an awesome book especially for this lesson. This book gets your students uber excited about reading. Here is a short & sweet summary.
Principal Wiggins has promised to dye his hair purple and sleep on the school roof if the students read 1,000 books this year, and Miss Malarkey is determined to find the right book for every student, including this story’s reluctant-reader narrator. Winning her students over book by book, Miss Malarkey will have students loving to read in no time. This book get’s everyone excited for what reading can do for you but also helps them to think about good fit books.
You’re Welcome.
If you type in “chicken hat” in Amazon you’d be very surprised what comes up. The classroom I had this year had some MAJOR VERBAL OVERFLOW ISSUES! Their class size was ENORMOUS in Kindergarten and we had to undo learned behaviors such as being an “interrupting chicken”.
Do I wear this hat while reading???? Why, yes. Yes, I sure do. I even wear it throughout the year and not just while I am reading the book. When I have out of control chickens I simply put this on & start bawking at them. If I bawk at them they have to give me a BIG FUZZY. This pretty much eliminates shouting out. I talk a lot about this particular lesson in my classroom management ebook. I am also working on adding a lesson to this portion of the book. You need to check it out! Keep reading….hint…hint.
This next part is where I probably will not follow the book. Unfortunately, we do not have the opportunity to have the students to come in with their supplies before school starts. Organizing all the supplies with the help of my students usually takes a BIG chunk of my morning even when I have help. I “might” do an I-Pick lesson in the afternoon or wait until day 2. I don’t think I want to front-load too much and totally freak them out on the first day. It’s just too much for first graders. It might be more appropriate for older grades.
I really love how the Sister’s do this lesson in the new edition. They go into it in more depth. I usually do the shoe lesson since I love shoes & they might as well know that right away. I will bring my golf shoes, a baby shoe, a pair of my husband’s work boots & I will borrow one of their shoes. I usually put these on & walk around until someone notices & then this begins my lesson.
One of the changes which I like is how you teach them this concept. You do not teach them to hold up their fingers anymore when they don’t know a word. That usually was an epic fail every year. I think it was just way over their head. The students should have 99% accuracy with any book they read to be a good-fit book.
You teach them how to pick a book. Model how to choose a book in your classroom library. You use the shoes to compare book selections.
This leads us to the PURPOSE. Would I wear my husband’s work boots with my nice chevron top & dress pants???? No, not a good fit. Would I wear my golf shoes to play tennis? Would your shoe be a good fit for me???
Then we discuss their interest. I will talk about the shoes here too. Do you think these work boots interest me since I’m a teacher? Do you think I would have baseball shoes in my teacher bag? Um, no. That does not interest me at all. I would have TOMS….those interest me.
Comprehending and knowing the words can be done as you read through any of your favorite picture books for the beginning of the year.
Another suggestion that I really liked was having a rotation during Daily 5 for book shopping. I have always had them shop for books as they finish their morning work on Mondays only. The only time they were allowed to go into any of the book bins was when they passed an AR test & they were able to switch out that book only. I might try the shopping rotation and see how it works.
Usually if a student is off task during Read to Self it’s because they are not reading a good-fit book. It might be too hard and they get frustrated. This is another reason to have book boxes for each students so they have back-up in case this happens.
The Sister’s go into a WHOLE lot in this section and I am just overwhelmed. I will be going back to their first book and not doing all these foundational lessons together. However, I will be introducing Work on Writing as our next rotation.
I will start my lesson by showing them this digital anchor chart which will find a place permanently in our classroom. Next, we will do the following anchor chart together.
We will write a story about how I felt the night before our first day of school. I will model my writing using our SMARTboard.
This is just a sample. I will write this out with them so it will be more authentic. I will include this in the freebie packet for your reference. The Sister’s suggest to model your writing and instead of asking every other second “how do you spell?” simply underline the word.
As I am writing this story I will think out loud to model how writers think while they write. You want to emphasize not getting caught up on the spelling of the words. Don’t interrupt your writing flow. KEEP WRITING!
My students do have writing notebooks that we use daily but I will not introduce these right away. Instead, I will have them one of my story papers in my Ultimate Writing Unit. I have several different kinds that you can pick and choose. I will use one with wide lines since this is the beginning of the year. I will put the above sample on our writing board as a reminder to UNDERLINE words we don’t know.
Click on any pic above to check out all the writing options. I am so very proud of this! After 3 years of Daily 5 and all my years of teacher…..this year was the FIRST year that my students fought over this station. There were tears my friends. They could NOT get enough of it. I am working on another set to add even more options. Check out the reviews!
I am going to include some foundational lesson must haves. Again, I will not be introducing these all at once. I will introduce each skill as I did before. When I introduce Read to Someone, I will do the EEKK lesson. It’s so important to model the most desirable and least desirable behaviors during Read to Someone. I do not show pictures during this lesson. I have pairs of students demonstrate. This helps with their muscle memory and I will refer back to this lesson throughout the year.
Guess what time it is??? 5:00 am & I have been working on this post for 7 hours. I.AM.BEAT. I couldn’t even finish the rest of the freebies BUT I will. If you noticed I did not do Chapter 6 either. There is just way too much information and I don’t want to miss anything. This post is MASSIVE so I will do a separate post for Chapter 6 and add the rest of the freebies. Don’t forget to follow by Daily 5 Pinterest board & our Daily 5 Book Study board.
I almost forgot. If you would like a chance to win my Classroom Management Ebook, leave me a comment about your favorite part of this post. I will be updating this Ebook & I will also be giving away my Ultimate Writing Station. Stay tuned………..
P.S. I am going to see Chelsea Handler in Chicago tomorrow!!!!! Remember this pic???? That is THE CHUNK!!!!! He did not feel like smiling for the paparazzi.
Favorite part-declaring you do wear the chicken hat…what a great motivator and way to show your students your passion for teaching and learning. rwenzel1325@gmail,com
My favorite part is the Chicken hat and book as well. I am moving to 1st grade this year and that will be a blast. Love it!!!!!!
I think the charts are great reminders.
My favorite part of your post is when you are writing and not stopping to ask how to spell things. It's so important for them to learn to just keep writing! I also LOVE the chicken hat idea. That is one of my favorite books and that just made it so much better.
My favorite part was the "good fit" using the shoes. What a fun idea that the kids will totally relate to!
My favorite part is the chicken hat! I love that idea and how it makes it visual! I'd love to win your e-book…it's on my wish list already. 🙂
My favorite part of this post was the chicken hat while reading the Interrupting Chicken. I also read this book, but never thought about the chicken hat! What a great visual for reviewing the story!! I'd love the ebook.
nhuggenberger@gmail.com
The chicken book and hat. Love it!
My favorite part was the chicken hat and when you were talking about your work on writing station. I really hope I can get my kids to love this center like yours do!
Love the chicken book I use it too!
Your summary of the new Daily 5 book was great. I was thinking about doing the Daily 5 this year. The wiring example with the misspelled words would probably be what I enjoyed most. I can't tell you how many times a student would stop their writing just to ask me how to spell a word.
Sorry, writing example, trying to type on the phone while traveling ( I'm not driving).
My favorite parts are your visuals for the right fit books and the chicken hat. I don't do enough visuals like that in my classroom. Thanks!
Oh my gosh, I love the chicken!!
Jennifer
First Grade Blue SKies
Whoa! I love this entire post! My favorite part is that I can literally hear the "voice" in your writing!! I smiled and laughed many times!!
Kristen
Lovingteachinginspiring.blogspot.com
This post was so informative! It will my first year of Daily Five in Kindergarten, and I am nervous! I would really like to see you in the chicken hat basking at your students…future video upload…lol! I would love to win the ebook, it is on my wish list as we speak! Thanks 🙂
Thanks for sharing your insight. My favorite part of this post is knowing that you will not be introducing all the foundational lessons together for your first graders. I admit I was a little overwhelmed when I read this in the 2nd edition- OK, I panicked! ! I too, will adjust this for my firsties! Thanks so much for the cute and useful freebies!! The chicken hat is a close second!! aludrick69@gmail.com
This post really gave me a lot of information that will help me with my launch of Daily Five. I really appreciate all the anchor charts you have created. These are very helpful!
I cannot pick a favorite part of this post. It was so informational and makes me so excited to begin implementing this next year!
To many favorite parts! I loved the chicken hat and I'm sure the kids do too. I also liked the idea of bringing in shoes to teach what a good it book is. Great post!
Very informative. This post gave me some ideas. I love the EEKK poem. I will be using that 🙂
Great post! I'm so glad I found your post! Favorite part…freebies and I' m now following you on Pinterest.
I loved the shoe lesson.
Wow! This was packed with great info.! I love the idea of the Interrupting Chicken Book and hat! I'm sure the kids love that. The Freebies are always appreciated too! Thanks for all of your time and effort in this post and your future post!
I'm looping with my class this year and am so excited for some new ideas. I LOVE the chicken hat! I am going to Amazon right now, because I KNOW this class needs it.
I enjoyed the whole post…packed with loads of info. I do like the shoe idea…thanks!
Love the chicken hat but really like the tip on the Miss Malarkey book…always looking for good books to help teach a concept! Thanks for the freebies and for all your hard work! I'm looking forward to my first year in 2nd grade and my first year of Daily 5!
I teach fifth grade and I haven't read the Daily 5 book yet. I keep checking out all of these posts trying to learn as much as I can from everyone before I read. I really appreciate you posting all of the freebies and going into so much detail. I'm wondering how I can take what you do as a first grade teacher and integrate it for the upper grades. I'll keep searching, but I love your part about using the shoes for the lesson. I will do that with my fifth graders because it seems so universal.
Thanks for taking the time to share! As a somewhat new teacher I am soaking up as much as I can from all of these amazing veteran teachers 🙂
Love the interrupting chicken idea! And the books
My favorite part was learning about the Mrs. Malarkey book, that I now must go and find it, it sounds perfect. Love reading all your thoughts on D5 and everything else by the way.
Michelle
inlikeflynnm@yahoo.com
I am a first year teacher and will be tackling not one grade, but three. Needless to say, I have been having non stop nightmares about failing my first day of school/ You are right, it does set the tone for the entire year! This blog post is a heaven send! Thank you so much for giving me such an in depth look at what your first day is like. I am definitely going to add your ideas into my first day! The best part is, I'm also a shoe fanatic so that part completely fits me as well! Thank you so much!
Favorite part – seeing the new version of the shoe lesson, which I adore as well. The kids think it's HILARIOUS to watch me clomp around in all the shoes I bring. I think using shoes to talk about purpose and interest will really click with them. Thank you for all you do!
I have been doing read to self and work on writing the last couple of years. I am really hoping to add in the rest of it this year. I am so glad that after introducing everything, they back off to 3 a day. That seems much more doable. I also teach first grade so it is a whole lot to try to teach in one day. Thanks for showing me how you are narrowing it down.
My favorite part was about the chicken hat. My kids would love this!
I really like the idea of including book shopping as one of the rotation choices. I've had a hard time figuring out the best way for the kids to pick out new books.
How can you even ask???? Favorite part == hands down, the chicken hat. Love, love, love it!!!