A Kentucky Classroom

As a child of the 80s, Rainbow Brite was part of my daily existence-I had the doll, the horse Starlight, and all the sprites.  (Not to mention the Color Kids, t-shirts and a nightgown.)  As I am using the Daily 5 structure this year, Word Work is a daily part of my existence.  I'm (nearly) constantly looking for new ways to make the Word Work time effective, meaningful and fun for the students.  (I need to also add I'm looking for something inexpensive, easy to introduce and something that will withstand five year olds manipulating it for two hours on end each day.) Enter paint chips.  The cheap teacher friendly ones. After making letter tiles and beads part of my day, I was a little put off by the noise.  So now I have a new tool in my Word Work treasure chest: I went to Wal-Mart and found the paint chips that will allow indelible ink on them (I have some that have the windows in 'em from Lowe's, but Sharpie won't work on them.  Big, sad sigh.) I made the executiv

Hi Friends.  Good to see you again.  I hope that you've enjoyed the day off (in Kentucky every district is closed on Election Day due to so many schools being polls). I thought I'd give you a peek at my classroom with the Daily 5 structure.  And I would love to hear what's happening in your classroom. I guess because it's my second year implementing it, this year it appears to be more successful than last year.  Last year I strictly adhered to the pacing guide in the back of the CAFE book.  And (as this often happens when I compare myself) I thought I had failed miserably.  For example : if my class still needed practice on Read to Someone procedures, but I was supposed to introduce a new element, I felt really stressed-like I wasn't going to be able to cover all the common core. Starting the Daily 5/CAFE This year I decided that my expectations needed to be more realistic.  And because I moved at my own pace, I feel much more comfortable with the routines and I thi