Howdy! I am a part of the Daily 5 book study being hosted by Live, Love, Laugh! Thanks Tammy! I currently use centers/workstations but I’m excited to implement the Daily 5, especially with all of your help and ideas! I feel like I have many of the pieces and components already happening, I just need to pull it all together! Here are my thoughts, random musings and ideas from chapter 1!
Behaviors and Expectations
I will admit that I sometimes take for granted that my students know what to do and how to behave. It’s true…hard to believe…but true. Not only is this the first school experience for many of my students, but my students also come from homes where there are no rules or expectations so establishing these behaviors on day one is vital for a successful year. I once heard a presenter compare behavior to learning a new skill. We don’t yell at a child when they can’t count to 10, we don’t write them up because they can’t count to 10, we don’t send them out and we don’t punish them for not being able to do an academic skill we are learning. Yet we will put them out, write them up, yell at them and punish them for not knowing how to do a behavior. We should approach behavior the same way we teach academics. If they aren’t doing the behavior right we must stop, reteach it and model it and practice it, exactly like we would if we were teaching academics. We can’t expect our students to learn the desired behaviors without PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE and MODELING, MODELING, MODELING AND MORE MODELING! How do I teach behaviors? I explain the desired behavior. I model it. I have students model it. We practice it. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. We repeat all year. A great example is when we line up. Even in May, if we talk when we line up, we will sit down, review our desired behavior and someone models it. Then we do it again. We will continue this until we do it correctly. The same is true for expectations. We talk daily about what is expected from our class (TO BE THE BEST!) and we talk about how we will make that happen. Then we practice and model. Practice and model. Did I mention model and practice?!
Monitoring Behavior
Monitoring behavior can be a challenge. It’s hard to give up control and it’s hard for me to not stop and re-direct someone. I have been lucky in my years in kindergarten because our centers time has gone smoothly. The students are engaged and learning. They are reading to themselves in the library, they are reading to animals in the library, they’re on the computer, they’re listening to stories, they’re writing the room, they’re building words and writing sentences. Inevitably someone can’t make the CD play or get the computer on the right website. I am the fixer and the one who helps them. I need to give this control to the students so that I can focus on my small groups and one on one instruction. If necessary, I will move clips up and down on our behavior chart. And if necessary we will clean up, re assemble on the carpet and use that as a teachable moment to get things going again. If a student is not exhibiting the desired behavior, I try to use eye contact to redirect them. If this doesn’t work, sometimes I will call out a student who is modeling the correct behavior and in extreme situations, I will call the child to my table to talk or have them clip down. Anytime a child clips down, we discuss why they clipped down and how they can make it better.
Whose classroom Is It?
Whose classroom is it? Simple. It’s our classroom. We’re a family and it’s ours. Everything in it belongs to us. From day one, we take ownership that it is our classroom and not Mr. Smedley’s room.
Supplies
We have supplies stored on shelves that are built in along one wall and run the length of the classroom. These are low to the ground so they are very accessible for the students. This is where they find writing supplies, paper, crayons, glue, markers, scissors, and more. We talk daily that these are our supplies and we share them because they don’t belong to one person. We also talk about respecting our supplies so we will always have them to learn
I look forward to learning more about the Daily 5 and look forward to bringing it my students!