Daily 5~ What to do NOW to prepare for the year

Hello Friends!

I am SO excited to be here blogging again!

I plan to continue this into another part as there are more things to do!  I am just starting with some of the more crucial things to do now. :)

First,  get the book and read it!

I am currently reading the Second Edition and I have to say that if you have not read the first edition you don't need to.  This reviews the first one nicely and adds their current thinking.  I have been doing D5 for 6 years and reading this book has refreshed my thinking- it is worth a read!

Check it out HERE.

Then, think about your classroom library.  Is it "beefy" enough?

In the Daily 5 book, it suggests a primary classroom have 750 book titles, but the Sisters strive for 1,000!  Do you have 1,000 books?

Now is the time to hit those garage sales people!

After you beef up your library, decide how to organize all those books.  It will be VERY important to have some kind of order to your books. 

Not to "plug" a product (but I'm going to anyway- ha!) but I explain my entire classroom library organizational system in my newest product HERE

(AND it is on sale right now!)

A big part of Daily 5 is having the kids reading at their independent level and it will be important to have books at their level.  Make sure you have a way of assessing your students' independent reading level and decide how to match your books to that level.  (I use Scholastic's Book Wizard to help me categorize my books by level)

Next, decide on your signal.

You will want a way to transition from one thing to the next in a non-intrusive way.  You will want to "train" your students using this signal.  It should be something that is introduced on day 1.

I love my Music Wand.

It has a soft sound yet powerful enough that the kids respond right away.

It is $4.95

You can check this out HERE

Other ideas are:

wind chimes

rain stick

music

etc.

Next up, decide on what you want to use as word work.  You can check out my detailed post and peek into my word work drawers HERE

I spent the summer before my first year doing D5 collecting bottle caps for one of my more popular word work choices.

I labeled each cap with a letter (vowels are red) and the kids can use these to build words.  LOVE!

The container that store the caps is from Jo-Ann's.

There is also a pretty HUGE word work FREEBIE that I have in my TpT store that you can get HERE.  Check it out and give me some feedback love. <3

Finally (for now ha!), decide on how your students will store their books.

We have book boxes in my class.

They are from IKEA and a pack of 5 is $1.99.  Yes, they do fall apart on occasion, but only a small few did not last all year.  I actually do a lesson on how to grab, hold, and carry your book box!
You can check them out HERE

Other teachers have gone the plastic book box route and that is a great option too.

Others have used plastic zip locks.

It is up to you!

Your students will use these book boxes to store their independent book choices for their Daily 5 time.  I actually have my students read from their book boxes all day long!  It is a beautiful thing!

Thanks so much for reading!

I hope you have a great Daily 5 journey!

Feel free to share some of your prep ideas in the comments! 

 I know I will have a follow-up post coming to you soon... stay tuned!