New Adventures for the New Year

I'm so excited about this new blog I've gotten involved in. Erika from The Honey Bunch has started a new blog called The Best Endings (You can check out the button on my sidebar.). This blog is all about books which are some of favorite things. I love to read and am always looking for new books to read. Anyway, check out my post over at The Best Endings and all my other blogging friends who are contributors.


Speaking of reading books, I'm reading The Daily 5 on my kindle. I've read almost the whole book. I still have 2 chapters left. I can't wait to start this new adventure in my classroom. I've taken copious notes and I've been working it out in my head. I have a few questions for those that use Daily 5.

•  Are there other Kindergarten teachers out there who use Daily 5? (Any of you live in Tennessee so I can come observe.)
• Do you do any other literacy centers or do you just use Daily 5?
• Where does your basal fit into Daily 5 or do you abandon it all together?
• How much time do you spend on Daily 5 each day?
• Do you do other writing workshop time?
• How did you set up their book boxes the first time?
• If you do this in kindergarten, what kids of materials do you use? It isn't always easy to find on level reading material.

Right now I'm just going to work on introducing Read to Self. Once that gets going I'm really wanting to introduce Read to someone. I'm not sure about the other components yet. I will have my students again next year in first grade and I think I can definitely get it all up and running then.
This is the idea of how I want this to be structured:
1. Mini-lesson on Comprehension skill with a read aloud
    A session of Daily 5
2. Mini - lesson on Phonics and Phonemic Awareness
    A session of Daily 5
3. Mini lesson on Writing and Grammar
    A session of Daily 5
I'm trying to figure out where I'm going to fit in some fluency practice. I attended this great workshop about fluency and I'm super excited to try some of his ideas. I hope to post something about these ideas in the future. I'm thinking that Read to Someone and Read to Self might be the best ways to fit in fluency practice. This would also tie into the kinds of things kids have in their book boxes.  I would appreciate any advice, suggestions, or tips that you have. I would love to have someone to bounce ideas off of so if anyone is interested in that, please let me know. Leave me a comment or email me kheinrich9@gmail.com