You are going to love using Daily Five and CAFE with your students. I will be starting my 7th year using Daily Five this September. I would begin Daily Five on the first day of school. You will see that this will set a great tone for the whole school year and help with classroom management. All of the behaviors that are taught in Daily Five work in all areas of your day (getting started right away, working the whole time, staying in one spot, etc.) I follow Daily Five as suggested in the book and it works for me. I begin using it even though I have not tested my students yet. Once they get a few minutes of stamina I may start pulling a child at a time, or I sometimes do my testing outside of my literacy block, I do not wait until word work is up and running to teach phonics. I incorporate phonics instruction throughout my day with my first graders. I begin my day with a morning message where we look at letters, sounds, sight words, punctuation. I also teach phonics in my focus lessons between rounds of Daily Five. Phonics can also be incorporated into shared writing and writer’s workshop. I hope this helps you. Good luck.

Thank-you so much, you have given me some real clarity!

I’m going to send you a link to a couple of articles that discuss the difference between the first day in a couple of different classrooms. This article may help you see how starting Daily 5 from the very beginning will help you get that most needed time to assess your students It may take me a few minutes to find it, but I will send the link.

I read the above question and posts. I was wondering if the2sisters ever replied with the link that was referred to in the last post. I am a Kindergarten teacher and this will be the first year that our district is using the Daily 5 and CAFE. Trying to figure out how to incorporate the Daily 5 and CAFE with required ELA Units and Phonics from the district has become very overwhelming and confusing, especially with little kindergarten students. I have read the books but confusion still exists.