Author's Purpose, D5, CAFE, and a Little Glue

I made these posters to match the way Reading Street teaches author's purpose in second grade. I love these little bugs from Scrappin Doodles. The borders are from the Scrappin Cop. You can pick them up at my Teacher's Notebook store.

This week has been crazy! Teaching and assessing at the same time is just nuts. Add in the full moon, Halloween, and a change in the weather...NUTS!

On a positive note, my kiddos are doing so great with Daily Five (actually four since we just started read to someone this week and I haven't introduced listen to reading yet!) Some of my lower readers are actually asking if we are doing read to self each day! And while DRAing one of my struggling readers today, I commented on what a good job he was doing self-correcting and he smiled at me and said, "Did you notice I backed up and reread too?" It tickled me so much. Can I just say I l.o.v.e. CAFE too! Those Sisters are amazing. If you aren't doing Daily Five or CAFE (or...gasp...have never heard of them) I strongly encourage you to check them out. I bought an ebook Daily Five book from Stenhouse Publishers so I didn't have to wait for it to come in the mail. Great invention--ebooks. I wish they had one for the CAFE too. That I ordered from Amazon.

I've got to share a funny from today. A kindergarten teacher in my building (who has the class from h..e..double toothpicks) had a little guy use glue stick to try and glue himself to his chair today! I just died laughing! His bottom was covered in purple glue. Okay, I promised her someday she will laugh about it although today wasn't that day. I have a few kids I'd like to glue to their seats, but purple glue stick wouldn't be the glue of choice...

By the way, this post was ready to go a week ago but I've had trouble with my google.docs and scribd and haven't been able to upload this. I finally got it to work today... :)>

CAFE Board and More

Here are a few pictures of finished boards.   My CAFE board headers were found on ProTeacher.  You can't see them very well, but they have adorable stick kids on them!  My Daily Five is next to the CAFE.  As I introduce Daily Five I make I-charts with the class and post for reference.  Next to that is my behavior board with the levels of behavior, class rules, and clip chart.  The class rules are from Whole Brain Teaching.  All three of these boards are close to my gathering area for easy reference.

The I-charts you see are from last year.  I need them a bit smaller for this year because only 4 fit!

I love my new clip chart!  Used polka dot scrapbook paper.  Hopefully it won't fade too much as the year goes on.

Someone's blog (if only I could remember who) had a writing "show-off" display.  Neat idea...then it was gone.  Later while at Hobby Lobby I saw this scrapbook paper that looks like framed chalkboard so I added letters, mounted on tag, laminated, and set on a little easel-like holder.  Voila!  BEEutiful Work display.  (Thanks to my friend Jeannie for the wording.)

This is my new word wall.  Black fabric backing with evenly spaced yellow scrapbook paper.  The letter labels are from Teacher's Clubhouse.  I am thrilled with the look of this long, narrow board.

Bee Theme CAFE

I ordered The Cafe book this summer after implementing the Daily 5 last year. Both are so incredible! But the headers had to match my theme. Here is my first go round. Not sure if I will stick with this or try again. My 14 year old says my bee theme has become an obsession. :)

These headers are now available at my Teacher's Notebook store for $1.