I want to do CAFE - now what?

My biggest struggle when I decided to do CAFE two years ago was where to start!  I do a great job teaching the framework of Daily 5, but  how do I start CAFE?
I spend over a week teaching and practicing Daily 5. When I felt they could go 15-20 minutes so I could conference with students - I started pulling students.

Here is what I've done this year and I've been very pleased:

Introducing CAFE and Daily 5

This will be my second year implementing CAFE and my fourth using the D5 Framework.  Here are some of my key tips to get you going:

• Sign up for the sisters "Tip of the Week."  Click here to sign up.  It's on the right hand side.
• Start small and make it managable. 
• Introduce "Read to Self" the first week, and practice Stamina
• Introduce "Read to Someone" if you want and again practice it
• The Sisters maintain that "Read to Someone" is not as important in upper grades as it is in primary.  If it's not something you want to implement, then don't!
• Introduce "Work on Writing" and practice it
• Do these seperate weeks to get comfortable and confident
• Even now, I still use "The Daily 5" book when I'm teaching the procedures.  I use it as a resource and explain to my students that it's part of my tool kit to teach. Plus, I think it's important that students know that I use books and that I don't have answers to everything.

I don't do "Working With Words" or "Listen to Reading" in Fifth Grade.  I do lots of read alouds, and that's what I use as my "Listen to Reading."

If you're comfortable with your management, and want to start implementing CAFE, I suggest following the sisters plan in the appendix of the book.  It starts with 10 strategies.  It gives you a guide on how/when to implement the strategies.  Guess what?  Last year, I only did the first 10!  I didn't really start hitting CAFE under second semester.  Do what's right for you!