Daily 5 in a 6th Grade Classroom

Linking up with The First Grade Parade for this awesome Throwback Thursday linky!

One of my most popular post is my Daily 5 in a 6th Grade Classroom post. I taught 6th grade language arts in a middle school for three years and using Daily 5 was by far the best thing I ever did.  I get questions all the time through email and would love to answer any you might have!

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So, I've been noticing around the blogging world that there are very few posts/info on how to run Daily 5 in a period based 6th grade classroom. I figured I would share what is working in my classroom...

Stats of My Classroom

-I teach 6th Grade English Language Arts

-I have seven 52 minute class periods

-I teach 25-33 kiddos in each class

Daily Schedule

-2 minute Self Start

-15 minutes of Daily 3/meet with students for individual or group strategy work

-20 minute lesson

-13 minutes practice

-2 minutes cleanup

Daily 3

-Read to Self, Word Work, Work on Writing are the 3 I do. The students are required to select one a day and they have to complete all three before they can start over.

-Students check in during self start and choose a Daily 3 to work on that day

-Students keep D3 work in their binder which stays in my classroom

-I collect D3 work once a week

Read to Self
-I purchased this Reading Strategies tic-tac-toe from Mrs. O over at Mrs. O Knows.
-Students are required to complete one activity each time they do Read to Self.

Work on Writing
-Students have 6 sets of these writing prompts to choose from
-Writing binders including pictures of our vocabulary from Inside Story with paper behind to write. The pic is in full color and in a sleeve. All vocabulary pictures stay in the binder the entire year and students can respond to any of them.
-Whole class journals with writing prompts from here. I revamped these and put pics on them as well. I will definitely upload these for you sometime soon.
-I am making a blogging bulletin board kinda like this pocket chart for my students to respond to. This is in the works and will be blogged about soon!

Word Work
-I use different spelling/vocab activities, but make them fit the season. For instance, this week my students did Spooky Sentences, A Halloween Letter, and Teeny Tiny Tricks when working with their vocabulary.

My Thoughts

-Love how D3 is working in my classroom

-Next year, I am going to build stamina on all Read to Self, Word Work and Work on Writing at the same time right at the beginning of the year.

-Would not trade D3 for anything! 

-Love my CAFE and VOICES boards that correlate with D3.

PLEASE let me know what you are doing in your class room! D3, D4, or D5? How much time do you have? How do you have students check in? I would love to know.