Books From Kinderland | Daily 5 and Leader in Me

Welcome to Kinderland, the place I spend most my time! Since I started teaching Kindergarten I read as many books for fun as I do for work. And I decided it’s time to start sharing them! In Books From Kinderland you’ll see the picture books I’m reading with my class from a teacher’s perspective. I’ll also share reviews of books I’m reading that are about teaching. So welcome to Kinderland!

The books I’m sharing today are to improve instruction – so not ones to share with the kids, but to change how the classroom runs. While my kids don’t know these books, they do know many of the key phrases from the books because they become part of our class language.

The Daily Five (Second Edition): Fostering Literacy Independence in the Elementary Grades by Gail Boushey, Joan Moser
Published by Stenhouse Publishers on February 3rd 2014
Genres: Education
Pages: 208
Format: Paperback
Source: Purchased
Goodreads

The Daily 5, Second Edition retains the core literacy components that made the first edition one of the most widely read books in education and enhances these practices based on years of further experience in classrooms and compelling new brain research. The Daily 5 provides a way for any teacher to structure literacy (and now math) time to increase student independence and allow for individualized attention in small groups and one-on-one.

Teachers and schools implementing the Daily 5 will do the following:

Spend less time on classroom management and more time teaching Help students develop independence, stamina, and accountability Provide students with abundant time for practicing reading, writing, and math Increase the time teachers spend with students one-on-one and in small groups Improve schoolwide achievement and success in literacy and math.

The Daily 5, Second Edition gives teachers everything they need to launch and sustain the Daily 5, including materials and setup, model behaviors, detailed lesson plans, specific tips for implementing each component, and solutions to common challenges. By following this simple and proven structure, teachers can move from a harried classroom toward one that hums with productive and engaged learners.

What's new in the second edition:

Detailed launch plans for the first three weeks Full color photos, figures, and charts Increased flexibility regarding when and how to introduce each Daily 5 choice New chapter on differentiating instruction by age and stamina Ideas about how to integrate the Daily 5 with the CAFE assessment system New chapter on the Math Daily 3 structure

The Daily Five is something you hear a lot about if you teach elementary. My first exposure to The Daily Five was my first year teaching and I was told that it was absolutely unrealistic for Kindergarten. Well, my first summer break I decided to read the book and yeah, I was like… how in the world can I do this in Kinder? But then I started reading blog posts about Kinder teachers doing it all over the place.

So do I do Daily Five in my classroom? No. But I’ve borrowed a lot of elements from the Daily Five for my classroom and my kids speak the Daily Five language in a lot of ways. The Daily Five is a format for Language Arts instruction and independent work by the kids. And I really love their approach – particularly for upper grades. It takes a very independent approach which is FANTASTIC, but is also the challenge for Kinder. Our kids do not come to us particularly independent, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t become independent readers and writers.

Honestly, I forget the exact FIVE stations that make up Daily Five – but in my classroom they have translated into Read to Self, Read to Partner, Work on Writing, Word Work and Listen to Reading. In a true Daily Five classroom, my kids would get to choose what they want to work on every time we go into our Literacy Stations. Instead my kids get two choices… that have choices within those choices. I’ve limited their choices, but I still believe choice and independence are the cornerstone to why this program works. Even if you can’t implement it fully in your classroom, I think elementary teachers (and probably middle school too honestly) should take some time to read this book. The principals can definitely improve literacy instruction and independence.

The Leader in Me: How Schools and Parents Around the World Are Inspiring Greatness, One Child at a Time by Stephen R. Covey
Published by Free Press on November 18th 2008
Genres: Education
Format: eBook
Source: Purchased
Goodreads

Change your child's future starting today: Learn how to use Stephen R. Covey's proven 7 Habits to create a leadership program for kids of all ages so they can be more effective, more goal oriented, and more successful.

In today's world, we are inundated with information about who to be, what to do, and how to live. But what if there was a way to learn not just what to think about, but how to think? A program that taught how to manage priorities, focus on goals, and be a positive influence?

The Leader in Me is that program. In this bestseller, Stephen R. Covey took the 7 Habits that have already changed the lives of millions of readers and showed how even young children can use them as they develop. These habits--be proactive, begin with the end in mind, put first things first, think win-win, seek to understand and then to be understood, synergize, and sharpen the saw--are being adapted by schools around the country in leadership programs, most famously at the A.B Combs Elementary school in Raleigh. Not only does it work, but it works better than anyone could have imaged. This book is full of examples of how the students blossom under the program--the classroom that decided to form a support group for one of their classmates who had behavioral problems, the fourth grader who found a way to overcome his fear of public speaking and wound up taking his class to see him compete in a national story telling competitive, or the seven-year-old who told her father than they needed to go outside and play because they both needed to "sharpen the saw."

Perfect for individuals and corporations alike, The Leader in Me shows how easy it is to incorporate these skills into daily life. It is a timely answer to many of the challenges facing today's young people, businesses, parents, and educators--one that is perfectly matched to the growing demands of our certain future.

I like getting this explanation for how schools are implementing the leadership traits taught in Sean Covey’s 7 habits of happy kids. It was helpful for implementation in my classroom, but this is not a guidebook for implementation in a classroom. It’s more like how schools have done it and it’s a PRETTY HUGE undertaking to be in Leader In Me School. That being said, I love the habits and I love having them be part of everything we do in our classroom, even if it’s not to the extent that Leader In Me Schools do.

I think the best people to read this book are probably principals and teachers at schools that have committed to becoming Leader In Me Schools – because reading it when you’re not can almost be discouraging or overwhelming… like well, ” I can’t do that and I can’t do that.” However, I don’t regret reading it and have used some of it to help me in my efforts to implement the 7 habits in my classroom.

This week in Kinderland Berls is talking about a couple of 4 star reads for improving classroom instruction and culture. Share on X

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