CAFE and Daily 5

Here is my CAFE menu board.

I use the CAFE board to show students all the areas of good reading.  When I teach a specific comprehension, accuracy (decoding), fluency, or expanding vocabulary strategy I add it to our CAFE board.  Then when I conference with students we put their names on star Post-It notes for them to mark what strategy they are specifically working on.

I teach a CAFE lesson prior to starting Daily 5. My lesson will last any where from 10 to 15 minutes.  Students then use their Daily 5 card to select what Daily 5 activity they will do for the first 30 minute rotation.  After 30 minutes, I ring a bell two times, which signals students to clean up and meet me on the rug.  Then, I will teach another CAFE lesson or I a writing lesson. (10 to 15 minutes)  After the lesson, students use their Daily 5 card again to select what Daily 5 activity they will do for the second 30 minute rotation. 

What do I teach for my CAFE lessons?

A while back I found a teachers website that had a Beanie Baby for each of the comprehension and accuracy (decoding) strategies.  I LOVE this as did my students.  So when I embraced Daily 5 and CAFE I did not want to lose this.  However, with the CAFE board, I no longer had room to display all the Beanie Babies. I came up with a solution!  I added picture of the Beanie Babies to each of the CAFE menu cards.

**The link to the Beanie Baby Reading Strategies, is off of my classroom website. I am NOT the creator of these strategies.  The lady who created them no longer has them up on her website.  The last I heard she was working on publishing them, but has not done so at this time.**

http://aschilb.emsd37.org/reading/ReadingSTR.htm

I do not teach all of the CAFE strategies that "The Sisters" have laid out in their book.  I do use Cross Check, Tune into Interesting Words, and Read Good Fit Books.  I also do not introduce strategies in a specific order.  I introduce what the majority of my students are needing at the time. 

I use trade books for interactive read alouds/shared reading, anchor charts, science and social studies big books (content area) to teach and model each of the various comprehension, accuracy, fluency, and vocabulary strategies. 

My goal is to slowly upload some of  my "go to" lessons that I use to introduce these strategies. Please keep checking back often!

Pinterest...a GREAT place to find lesson inspiration for Daily 5

Now that you have implemented the Daily 5 in your classroom, you need lessons to teach before sending students off to work independently. I am planning on dedicating an entire post about how I implement CAFE into the mix.  However, I wanted to share a lesson I did with my students this past week.  I was inspired from an anchor chart that I saw on Pinterest.

This is the anchor chart that inspired me!  I found it on Pinterest...of course!  I <3 Pinterest.  Seriously, how did I teach prior to this amazing sight?  I found it on http://theinspiredapple.blogspot.com/.  Fabulous blog, you should all check it out!

Each of the questions are tied to a Common Core standard.  The problem for me was that these were first grade standards and I teach second grade.  After checking out the second grade Common Core standards, I found lots of questions that students should be asking...for fiction and non-fiction. So I started by making an anchor chart titled, Questions We Should Ask When Reading Fiction. It is my intent to make one for non-fiction as well.

I also only wanted to introduce the first two questions.  I wanted to create the anchor chart with my students, model what this looked and sounded like before adding the next question to the chart.  I believe that if students are apart of the making of the chart, then they will be more likely to reference the chart later on. However, I do NOT want to create this again next year, so I will be laminating this cart after this year.  Next year though, I will cover up all the questions and reveal them as we learn them. 

Here is what I did for the my lessons for the first two days of introducing this strategy. I did each lesson prior to my first rotation of Daily 5.  

Day One: RL.2.1

I explained to my students that good readers ask themselves who, when, when, where, why, and how WHILE they are reading.

I read the book, The Wednesday Surprise by Eve Bunting

I would read a few pages, stop and do a think aloud, modeling how I ask myself a who, what, when, where, why, or how question.  Then I would answer what I was thinking.  I would continue reading then I would pause and have students share with a thinking buddy a who, what, when, where, why, or how question.  The other partner would try and answer it.

Day Two: RL.2.6

I explained to my students that good readers pay close attention to who is telling the story.

I read the book, Almost to Freedom by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson 

 I read the first two pages, but paused before reading...being Lindy's doll baby was a right important job.  I asked students to turn to their thinking buddy and share who they thought was telling the story and how they knew. After sharing with their buddy, I ask students to share with me their thoughts.  Then I read the sentence...being Lindy's doll baby was a right important job.  I asked students if their predictions were right. 

I continued the book the same way as I had on with Wednesday Surprise, modeling who, what, when, where, why, and how questions and having students do the same with their thinking buddies. 

This book was longer, so I stopped after reading the page where Lindy and Miz Rachel were getting up in the middle of the night.  I told students I was going to level them in suspense. 

I will continue to post the lessons that I teach to go with each question on my chart and the finished anchor chart.  I promise in the posts to come I will touch on how this fits into CAFE, even sharing my literacy schedule to help it all make sense.  :)

Please feel free to let me know what you think!



Freebee Friday!

Yes...yes I know that it is not officially Friday yet, but close enough. Next week, my students are going to be doing some Earth Day activities.  Today, while planning for next week, I couldn't stop thinking about how my students really needed to brush up on some dictionary skills.  Specifically, using guide words and alphabetizing.  In wanting to stick to the Earth Day theme...I had some sudden inspiration!

 First I would laminate all the pages.  Then I would cut out each of the word cards.

Students then use the guide words at the top of each mat (5 total) to sort the word onto the correct page.  After all the words are on each page, student will put them into alphabetial order.

Well, I was pretty darn excited about my idea. So much so that it's 9:00pm on a Thursday night and I am posting this for all of you.  My restlessness is your gain.  I hope that you all enjoy this FREE resource. If you have time, take a look at the other items available at my TPT store.

Student managed rotations!

I am a firm believer that children need to take ownership over their learning.  Therefore, when it comes times for students to go to the various Daily 5 activities, I allow them to select what activity they will do...with parameters of course.  :)  Getting students to be independent when selecting their activity, takes lots of time and modeling at the beginning of the year, but totally pays off!

Each students is given a laminated Daily 5 card.  Notice there are only 4 of the 5 Daily 5 activities.  My students do not have a choice whether they will silent read on a particular day.  This is something that every child does every day.
We start off Daily 5 with a CAFE lesson. (More on this during a later post...some stop on back.)  After the lesson I direct students to go back to their seats at take out their Daily 5 cards.  These are kept in their book bags.  (All materials needed for Daily 5 are kept in their book bags.)

With a Vis-a-Vis marker, students write the date that they chose to do the particular activity. Students are taught that the must do each activity once, before the can do it a second time. They can't do an activity a third time until they have done everything a second time.  This ensure that students are getting equal amount of practice of each Daily 5 activity. Please note that not every square will be filled in by the end of the week.  If we have a full week of school, each activity will be done at lease twice.

While students are doing their Daily 5 activity, I am working with my guided reading and strategy groups. (Again more on this during a later post!)  When we are done with the first rotation, I ring my bell two times.  This signals the students to clean up and meet me on the rug for our writing lesson.  After the writing lesson is done, we begin our next rotation of the Daily 5 the same way that we began the first.

First Things First...Read to Self

If you are familiar with the Daily 5 the 5 components of the Daily 5 are Read to Self, Listen to Stories on Tape or CD, Work on Writing, Word Work, and Partner Read.  Students rotate to all the activities every day with mini lessons in between each rotation.  I could NOT make this rotation schedule work for me because of time and specials. 
I only had time for 2 or 3 rotations each day, but I felt very strongly that Read to Self should be happening DAILY....period!  So here is what I have worked out in my classroom.
Every morning when students arrive they drink milk and silent read for 30 minutes.  (We do 2 or 3 rotations of the other activities later in the morning during Daily 5 time. More on this in a later post.)  While my students are reading I am holding reading conferences.
During Read to Self time, my students are reading books from their book bags.  Each student has a Book Bag that has books they have selected that are at their independent reading level. Fridays are Free Read Fridays and students can read any book from our room they would like.  The goal is they will use the I PICK method taught earlier in the year. :)

How do I know that  my students are getting books at their independent reading level?  Well, I have two classroom libraries in my room.

This is my leveled library.  The books are leveled using the Fountas and Pinnell guided reading levels. The baskets are given a color coded sticker rather than the actual level so as to not put too much student focus on the level. After I conference with students I direct them to the appropriate basket where they can pick out 10 books for their book bags. 

This is my classroom library that is divided into a fiction and nonfiction section.  Books are organized into various categories.  Some are organized by subject and others are organized by author.  Each basket has a sticker indicating what books are in that location. On the back of each book their are two stickers.  The first sticker is a fiction or nonfiction sticker so students know what section of the library the book belongs.  The second sticker is a label sticker that matches the sticker on the basket.

This is the nonfiction section of my library.

This is the fiction section of my library.

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