I was very happy with the success of the implementation of the Daily 5 last year, but I want to make it even better this year. I am going to have only 4 rotations at 15 min. each rather than 6 rotations at 12 min. each. Given my enthusiasm for D5, I was trying to do too much each day. Luckily, students did very well in language arts and reading, but I did feel it was a bit rushed. Part of the way that I'll accomplish this is by only meeting with 4 reading groups per day. I'm excited to get started (once training and stamina are built up this year, of course)!
I'm also excited about the CAFE. I've come to the conclusion that it's really just good, explicit instruction. It seems like a great way to make sure that you're teaching students all of the independent skills necesary to be a good reader and writer. I'll report back on that later once we've begun lessons.
Another challenge this year is that we're having copier "challenges". But, I am trying to be more efficient with my resources anyway, so that will be another improvement that I'll make this year to D5. It'll be less paper intensive. I plan to have students use their binders a lot more.
I'm looking forward to building stamina so we can hit the ground running in my classroom this year!
