CAFE for casuals??

I love the CAFE program and am so psyched to implement this program when I get my own classroom, but since I love it so much and am impatient, I've found small ways to implement some elements of CAFE into relief teaching.

This week with Year 1 we have been doing sessions of Reading Groups. Two groups work on literacy activities (usually blends work), whilst one group does guided reading with the teacher and the other completes reading worksheets. Well I'm just going to come right out and say it I HATE WORKSHEETS!! If I find them boring then no doubt so will my kiddies so instead of the worksheet, I had my group select a book from a pile (I picked out good fit books before the lesson) and then read to themselves. When they came to a word they didn't know, they wrote the word on a post-it, asked a friend if they knew the word, then asked myself if the friend didn't know. Once they knew how to read the word, they added it to the class Word Dictionary. This way, the students have written the word out twice and can recognise the word, and have learnt how it sounds.

I truly thought this activity would be beyond my Year 1 class, but I tried it anyway (Feel the fear and do it anyway!) and surprisingly they all loved it and actually did what I wanted them to do! Here are some of the words they came up with.

I can't wait to try some other CAFE techniques as well as CAFE strategies in the future and please let me know if you have any suggestions for casual teachers using CAFE strategies!

Miss Daniels :)