The Daily Five In Kindergarten

Writing
This month I have been writing about my journey using the Daily Five in Kindergarten. While students are choosing between word work and read with someone, their writing continued to blossom. We write every day. We begin writing workshop with interactive writing and then students choose their own topic.  Sometimes we do science writing, respond to a story or create a class book but most days it is their choice.  Each day before we write we revisit the anchor chart. After writing students do a check-in using thumbs up or thumbs to the side to show how they think they are doing.

In January students were given their own journals and the choice to write on loose paper or their journal. Most students prefer the journal. We expanded our writing block to twenty five minutes and added author chair where students can share their journal writing with peers. This has been very popular.

Kinders have a celebration piece displayed each month.

The students have writing folders to hold their works in progress, finished pieces and journals. Each day I read their writing and plan my writing conferences for the next day.  Students who have met kindergarten criteria (we created in the fall) have set personal learning goals such as writing their own important word, writing a three word sentence, writing on different topics, working on colouring, adding more colours, ...
For the first five months I circulated as students worked and conferenced at "the elbow," but now that they are so independent and focused I am able to pull little writing groups and work with them. 
During either during lunch or quiet centres I conference with students to review and set new goals. I averaged two conferences during January for each student and was able to do mini assessments on letter recognition, sound knowledge and kindergarten high frequency word list. This information helps me plan my word work bins as well as mini lessons for the class.