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.