How I Spice Up Daily 5





It's that time of the year when your students are getting SPRING fever and it's not too long until they get SUMMER fever {but who isn't, right?}!  You might need to spice things up during your literacy block. :)  Aside from going over your anchor charts again and reviewing your expectations, I like to add a few "ooohhhs and ahhhhhs" to my Daily 5.  {You have GOT to read Daily 5 from The Sisters, if you haven't} We call them the bells and whistles and I ONLY bring them out when I'm in dire need.  I haven't pulled these out quite yet, but it's coming in due time. 
*PLEASE NOTE: each of these items come with a lengthy explanation on how to use them properly. You must teach the expectations for each item BEFORE you set them free to use them. :)






To spice things up in Daily 5’s Read to Self, I let my students pick a stuffed animal to read with.  The animal must stay in their lap or sit next to them and they are not allowed to play with it.



I bought these glasses at the Dollar Store and I just popped out the lenses. They LOVE to wear these to read with because they are MAGICAL!


These are whisper phones.  They LOVE these.  A middle school student made them for our school as an Eagle Scout project.  You can also purchase some here.  I make sure to teach my students how to hold the phone so it doesn’t touch their mouth and I give them tips on how to do it without hurting their ears. I also have them quickly wipe them down when they are finished.

Witch fingers. I mean… who doesn’t love for their finger to look like a witch? They love tracking their words (and never picking their nose with it)!



Each day, my students can pick from one of these activities:




I also like to add “Weekly Activities”. This is an activity that changes every week.  This week we are “scrambling” our spelling words.  This activity comes from my 123 Spell with Me pack.  Each week, it changes.






For Read to Someone, I like to give my students their Word Helper bookmarks to help when doing “coaching or time”.  You can find the bookmarks here. I just laminate them and keep them in a bin. When the students pick their partner for Read to Someone, one of their partners can grab a bookmark.  As they are reading, they can help one another by telling them what word helper to use when they come to a tricky word. They love pretending to be the teacher.



My students absolutely love writing letters to one another.  All I have to do is put writing stationary in the Work on Writing file and they are good to go! You can download lots of writing paper {here}.






Click {here} for the writing stationery {clipart from djinkers.com}


Also, if you don’t do journaling for bell work, then it would be a great thing to spice up your Work on Writing by making them some fun journals!  My students love to see what their cover will look like this month. It’s also great because you can differentiate how many lines are on each page.




My students will love this one and they are always on task. BUT, it is just nice to change it up a bit.  So, what I did was buy a bunch of headphone splitters so that they can listen to the same book at the same time. They love laughing together, singing together, and just sharing a good book together.  I only have about 3 students per book though.



Another great tool to spice up Listen to Reading is an iPad. I use the app Epic (can also do on a computer).  It is FREE for educators and has tons of options! Many books are read to the student so you can use it for listen to reading.





I also use Brainpop Jr. app (also available on a computer) for Listen to Reading.  The great thing about this app is that it has the subtitles at the bottom of each educational video! It's just like reading a book!  If you don't have a subscription, your students can get the free video of the week.


Need to spice up your guided reading lessons?
Perfect for kinder and 1st grade! But don't go...I have one for 2nd and 3rd (see bottom of post)







Here's 2nd Grade's:


Here's 3rd Grade's:












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