I love summer! Can I get an amen? Summer is for cleansing the mind of all things that are “so last year” (except the sweet memories of my kinders).  It’s for developing ideas for the coming year without the added pressures of time.  Your time is your own for the most part, and with THAT kind of time you can truly create, learn and make progress! I have sooo many projects going this summer.  First off, I am re-covering the bucket seats from the two previous years with a pretty primary blue, then putting little basketball, baseball and soccer ball spots on them to decorate them up! These are fabulous for my small group table.  They are just the right height and my students adore sitting on them.  If you want to see step by step how I made them, follow this link:  Bucket Seats on the Cheap  here is the mock-up of the new seats:

 

Here are mock-ups of the theme I am working on.  Don’t you love the border from CreativeTeaching.com? 

The little ball player is on a new poster I made for the wall across from my classroom entrance.  I am loving the color combo!

I am also revamping my calendar wall/word wall.  This year’s wall will feature my super-sized alphabet chart with word cards for each picture.  An instant wall for little writers to reference!  The other side of the bulletin board in my teaching area will be dedicated to the five weeks of words for each lesson in our reading series.  Once those words are moved, they will go to the alphabetical order word wall adjacent to the calendar.  I always…ALWAYS make a mock-up on my computer of what I envision the wall looking like (or what I envision that area of the room containing).  As you can see, nothing fancy, but it keeps in my head where things in my room will live.  Alphabet Poster Teaching Wall set is in my store.

Something else I am tossing around…”a giant calendar” for the wall by my reading table.  This will house the date center, numbers on sports balls, and round photos of students of the day (and when students have a birthday).  I am very excited about this, but you’ll have to wait to see it! That will be later this week or weekend.

Finally, I caved and purchased the Kindle reader version of The Daily 5 II, by The 2 Sisters (Moser and Boushey).  They have completely rethought the implementation of D5, and people! It really makes sense.  I can’t wait to implement it this coming year.  We will work on stamina with vigor, and we may use the cute stopwatch timer as discussed on Marsha’s blog:  A Differentiated Kindergarten. Go read her summary of chapters 3 and 4.  She has amazing ideas! (and she’ll put your mind at ease if you are a D5 doubter).  Something else I am trying is something I do every year:  I think about how I want small groups to run.  In kindergarten, some years may be Daily 3 or 4 because students are not ready for Read EEKK with another student.  We practice it, but it isn’t one of the choices early on.  Here is how my task board works.  Each of the four color groups (I use colors for grouping below level to above level students–two of the colors will be below level kids, usually).  As you can see, on Monday, Blue begins the rotation working with the teacher, but also must stay with the same center catagory they are assigned (word work, read to self, work on writing) for that day.  There are a variety of choices within each category, so students can choose another tub or activity as long as it fits the type of center they are assigned that day when we rotate (they should only choose twice–stay with a job until it is done).  I see all four groups each day, but some are with me during the morning rotation, and some are with me after Math in the afternoon.  Students may choose another center, or finish what they started during the morning rotation.  I let them keep unfinished work in the top of their reading tubs which are paper size (the flat ones).  After the work is finished, they are allowed to rest a while and watch an educational dvd.  We do this more during the beginning of the year when kids still need the down time.  Our afternoon rotation varies from 30 to 40 minutes per day.  Rest time is becoming a rare commodity in kindergarten for most kindergarten classes!

On Tuesday, Green will begin with me while other groups begin their center category for the day.  This is how I make sure every student has all four categories of D5 by Friday.  On Friday, students can play group games or choose any of the D5 activities they want as long as no more than two are working together.  The rule of no more than two, unless it is a game like Bingo, is a wonderful rule! The old saying “…three’s a crowd” is really true for kinder kids.  Less fuss, less muss! We have I-Charts to refer to when we need a refresher on how our centers should look/not look, sound/not sound, etc.  

Well, that’s a little of what I do in my room.  What do you do for your rotation? What do you think works the best? I am eager to hear!

Now, you really should go to Kim Adsit’s blog and see what other bloggers are doing! You’ll find some things that will “hit it out of the park”!!