Daily Five in Five Days. Oh Yes We Did!

Working in a departmentalized elementary school is something I've blogged about before.  I LOVE IT!  I love focusing on only ELA and I love that my students get all core subjects every day.  And I love that we all work together as a team to do what's best for kids... we aren't "islands", which I loved when I was one but now that I'm part of a team that works together in the way that we do, I can't imagine going back to working on my own behind closed doors.

Anywho... one of the challenges is getting started with Daily Five at the beginning of the year.  When I was an island, I felt like I could really take my time getting Daily Five up and running.  But, not only is third grade more academically intense than 1st and 2nd, but departmentalizing means that I can't just stretch out my time blocks.  I have to be prompt and punctual and get things done because other people are counting on me.

So, gone are the days of taking six weeks to get Daily Five up and running and now is the time for getting it running in five days.

And, I'm happy to report that we have done it!

My almost 50some 3rd graders {I teach ELA to two different classes of kiddos} have totally nailed it and we are ready to go with small groups and a "real" Daily Five starting on Tuesday!  I will be making their choices for a few weeks yet, so that's the only thing that will be different, but we are trained in all the ways of Daily Five and it only took five days!

Here's how it worked...

Monday we hit really hard on Read to Self.
Tuesday, during the 2nd round, I added Read to Someone.
Listening came on Wednesday.
Thursday we did work on words and work on writing.
On Friday, we put it all together and had all activities running at the same time.  It was beautiful!

I did not teach any writing last week, so I had about 110 minutes each day to work on Daily Five routines only.  I'm pretty excited about being able to work with small groups so soon!