Daily 5 Book Study-2nd Edition-Chapters 3-4+FREEBIES

This week we are blogging about Chapters 3-4. After hours upon hours of work last night….. I made several freebies…I lost all my work :o( I did remake most of it for you. Technology has not been my friend for the last two days. 

These chapters are mostly about INDEPENDENCE which is my favorite word. 

I’ve been teaching first grade now for 10 years and wouldn’t change it for the world. Visitors always ask me how my students are so independent. I believe you have to make your students independent by not doing every little thing for them. Lots of teachers think that you need to hold their hand for everything. Trust me, they become independent quickly when they are made to be. 

I’ll never forget about 8 years ago I had a little girl that was in line ready to go to Library. She looks at me & snaps her fingers & said “Go get my library book!”. She is very lucky that I loved her & that it made me giggle & not get aggravated. I told her nicely to step out of line and grab her book herself. I had a parent teacher conference with her mom and we were discussing how smart she was but she had a major problem with organization. When I told her to get out her notebook it would take F.O.R.E.V.E.R for her to get through all the garbage in her desk. So I nicely asked her mom to cut the cord give her some more responsibilities at home and maybe that will help her in school. I did find out that she literally still wiped her butt….in FIRST GRADE! At the end of the meeting she started to clean out her daughter’s desk. Seriously???? I had to pry her away from it so she would STOP! Memories……….

I’m glad she provided me a story to give other parents as an example of what not to do. I am NOT going to pack 20+ backpacks & write in their agendas & color their behavior charts. They have to do it themselves….INDEPENDENTLY. It might take some students a little longer to “get” that we are not there to clean up after them & do everything for them. I make sure to make this crystal clear on day one. It’s truly amazing how quickly they become independent at school and at home. 

This is when I identify what is being taught in each lesson. For Daily 5, I do go over specifics on each station in our mini lesson & we discuss what we are learning, how it’s supposed to look, and what our objective is. I also ask several students before and after our lesson exactly what are we going to learn & what did we learn. 

I do not have the room to have a large easel with anchor charts so I display my charts on my SMARTboard & save whatever info we write together and go over & over it until everything is a habit. 

 Since I am all about POSITIVE reinforcement, I am adding these punch cards while we are building our stamina. If they break stamina, they don’t get a punch. If they get a punch every day for a week, they will get a BIG FUZZY on Friday. Once they have two weeks filled, I will collect them, praise them, gush over each & every one of them & give them a special treat. I will put on GoNoodle or something. I would do that anyway on Fridays but how would my new students know that? If they broke stamina & don’t have all of their punches….I guarantee they will the following week. They will WANT to be them…trust me! One of my student jobs is teacher’s assistant, so they will be in charge of the punches every day. 

We will fill this I-chart out together—this is the “record” part. I will also go over these posters with the students to explain what “Read to Self” is all about.         I made two different versions for you.

 I always like to show my current students pictures of our Daily 5 launch. So in August I will be showing my new students the following pictures. This picture was taken way after we launched but I captured a moment where they were all completely engaged, sitting in one spot, not distracting each other & were reading the entire time.

Now this is the same group as above but the second little nugget lost stamina. I will show them this picture and we will discuss what he did wrong. I’m showing them just a piece of what the most desirable & least desirable behaviors are. 

This is where the handy graphs come in to play. I love displaying our stamina graphs on the SMARTboard for them to see. I used to display a stamina timer on the SMARTboard but then I found them breaking stamina because they were watching the timer. Every class is different so you may want to try that. This year’s class…. it just didn’t work. All of the stamina graphs that I posted last week you can find HERE. I suggest laminating them & using a dry erase marker on them so you can use them year after year. 

                 ***STAY OUT OF THE WAY***
This is hard, I know. But it’s something you HAVE to do. I always like to sit at my small group table and read. I do look up & record anything I see someone needs to work on or just my own anecdotal notes on specific students. It’s important not to be moving around the classroom because this will cause them to break stamina. You know how they love to watch every move you make. 


I had a student that was reading a Diary of a Wimpy Kid book but I knew he couldn’t possibly be reading it…I knew his reading level. He didn’t break stamina surprisingly but I did pull him aside later in the day and gave him a quick I-Pick lesson. 

I am also keeping track of who is getting the stamina necklaces for the round. I choose one stamina king & one stamina queen. Do they get the necklace more than once? YES! I do have students that get the necklace several times just so they know once they get it they always have a chance of getting it again. Basically, I make sure they know I am still watching them at all times. 

Chapter 4 is all about what you need to get started. Most of the topics, I already went over but I have a few pictures I would like to show you of what I use in my classroom. 

I absolutely LOVE these book boxes. I purchased book boxes from Target several years ago & they only lasted me 2 years. This year I also limited them to up to 5 picture book and 1 chapter book at a time. If you don’t give them a limit they will stuff them until they break. 

These are neon bins from Really Good Stuff & the numbers are adhered with none other than Velcro. When it was time for them to trade their books out we would wipe them out with a wipe so they stayed nice and clean. 

You can NEVER have too many books. I have books that range from kindergarten level all the way through 6th grade. You have such a wide variety of reading levels from year to year that you can never have enough books. 
To this day I live at garage sales in the summer. I always slip in that I am a teacher so I get a better deal. I am cheap with certain things. I will NOT pay over 50 cents for hardbacks & 25 cents for paperback. I usually talk them into it even it their prices don’t match my prices. I let my students take home AR books every night. They have to have an AR test done a day at the minimum. Keeping my library stocked gives me the ability to be able to do this & keeps the parents happy. 

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