Well after spending June reading "Daily 5" and the "Cafe", by the sisters, I was like anyone who has read them. I was inspired! The summer was spent figuring out how to make it work in my grade 5/6 classroom.
I knew it was a great solution to the problems I always ran into with students all working at different levels, copious numbers of ESL and students with special needs. But the logistics of time with an intermediate classroom and the idea of changing my teaching style 180° was a little more than daunting.
In the past few years of teaching I have learned that my teaching conscious can't let me be lazy and if I know that something is better than I have to go do it. So I spent the summer figuring the logistics and here we are 5 and a bit weeks with these new students and I am absolutely loving the change.
I do 'daily 3' 4 afternoons a week, though 2 of this afternoons it is only for 45 minutes and one hour respectively. The other two afternoons it is the full 2 hours. It will end up giving me 6-7 rotations per week which are about 30 minutes of independent work time for students. We have been building our stamina since the first day we were together. We can do 30 minutes of independent reading and about 22 minutes of writing. I have only just launched word work today, though that being said they did 25 minutes without any trouble today.
I am in the process of setting up groups and teaching mini-lessons to get cafe really under way. I believe it is the heart of the instruction and definitely my next challenge!
Do you use the daily 5 or cafe in your intermediate classroom?