Daily 5 CAFE

Our favorite time of the day is our Daily 5/CAFE block. I'm sure, unless you live under a rock, you're heard of Daily 5/CAFE. What we love about this set up is that we are teaching strategies in a meaningful way.  Our students are able to practice the strategies while engaged in self selected tasks.

Like all of you out there we customize programs to fit our needs.  Our kids are social butterflies... and are also really into writing this year!  So we decided to created a 6th choice, that falls under Work on Writing, called Collaborative Writing.

You might be wondering, what is Collaborative Writing?

Collaborative Writing in a nutshell...
1. Students partner up
2. The partners write on "special" chart paper
3. They have to listen to each others ideas and compromise
4. Both partners have to take turns writing
5. They must help each other to write complete sentences with proper punctuation and capitalization.

Needless to say... It's a HUGE hit.

Grab a copy of our CAFE posters here.

Speaking of cafes, my mom and I were out [doing what we do best] shopping when we discovered a new store/tea bar, Teavana.  Have you heard of this place?   

For all you tea drinkers out there you must visit this store!  

While browsing we tried 5 different hot and iced teas they had brewing right in the store.  What was cool is how they brew the tea because it's bag-less. The loose leaf tea is sold by the ounce [warning: it is a little expensive... but totally worth it].  But what's great is that the employees will make you any flavor you want to try before you purchase it.  

Obsessed.