About to Embark on a Daily Five Adventure

And my centres are ready, or mostly ready! I don't remember the last time I relaxed during a nutrition break since it's been a mad rush to finish making all my games so I can get started with the Daily Five (Cinq au quotidien). I'm very excited and nervous too as this will be a very big change in my teaching. I've never really done centres except for the odd occasion in science. And I've planned centres for reading workshops, writing workshops, and math workshops. I really like the ideas presented in the Daily Five but will be adapting them to suit my teaching style and class needs. 

For Reading, the students will rotate through the following five centres: Reading with Mme, Reading with a partner, Reading Games and Activities, Listening to Reading (at the computer), and Independent Reading. For Writing, they will rotate through these centres: Writing with Mme, Writing Alone, Group Writing Activities, Writing Games, and Dictionary and Word Wall Activities. For Math, they will rotate through the following centres: Math with Mme, Group Problem Solving, Math Games, Fact Practice, and Math at the Computer. We have discussed how we will be doing "ateliers" for those three subjects. The centres will be about 20-25 minutes only and there will be our regular language and math activities as well. Each group will be made up of 4 students and one group will have just 3 students. The groups for Reading, Writing, and Math will all be different to give the students a chance to work with various classmates. 

All ready for Monday

I will be monitoring how the students work in groups. When they work well and are on-task, they will earn checkmark for the centre. When they have reached 25 checkmarks, they will be able to pick from a variety of individual rewards that I have available, such as bringing a stuffy to school for the day, or getting a no homework pass for the week. They seem very excited too as they have seen me preparing the games over the past few weeks. 

Rewards

Finished game folders (one each for Reading, Writing, and Math)

My almost finished game pile

This week in language, we did the comptines "Les oeufs" and "Les joueurs de soccer" with the "eu/eur" sounds. The grade threes finished up the story "Bernard le canard" with the "ar" sound. I read the story "Le castor qui travaillait trop fort" as a read aloud. This sparked a great discussion about the quality of one's work. The beaver rushed through his work so quickly that he ended up being negligent and careless. The students made some great comparisons to their own work and what they should be doing when they work, taking their time to do something properly and being considerate of others around them. They did a reading response after where they had to draw a picture for the beginning, the middle, and the end, and write a sentence to go with each picture. They then had to do the same reading response activity with a self-selected book at their own reading level. 

We continued to work on surveys and graphing in math. The grade threes have been working on problem-solving with Mme Jarvis. We will be doing a math assessment next week for data management and will then begin our new math unit. 

It's been such a busy week that I'm really looking forward to relaxing with my family this weekend before beginning my "Daily Five" adventure next week. I hope the students enjoy all the centres that I have been working so hard to prepare for them!