It's the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. I have had a fun day with my family and now everyone is sleeping. Well, my four girls are in bed, not necessarily sleeping. I love to read about new teaching ideas at night when my kids are in bed. When I was looking through some of my teaching books, I came across The Daily Five and CAFE books by the Two Sisters, that I read last summer. I just started using Daily Five for the first time in my classroom this year and I am anxious to reflect and revise many things for next year. I read the first few pages and had to grab my highlighter. The first ideas of Daily Five were inspired by Margaret Mooney, an amazing literacy teacher from New Zealand. No way! I knew I loved Daily Five. As a former Reading Recovery teacher, I have so much appreciation for New Zealand teachers and the impact they have made on literacy all over the world.
Then I hopped onto the two sisters site: the2sisters.com and started searching kindergarten and getting started. I found a cool parent letter that teaches parents the language we use in Daily Five and how to ask their children the right questions about their day. I also discovered an article, "2 Different Word Walls," by Trish Prentice. She wrote about having two word walls in your classroom, one wall for those "sit and get" students and a magnetic interactive word wall, where students can come up and grab a word they need, take it back to their seat, and then return it when they are done. Ding! Ding! Ding! That makes so much sense! So, I have added that to my list of things to put in my new classroom this fall!
