I am so glad that I read The Daily Five this summer.  I learned so much about taking the beginning of the year to train your class how to do things.  We have been working on fine motor skills and centers.  The class has become very independent.
We have started our second unit, "Apples" by Kindergarten Smiles.  Wow!  What a difference from our first unit.  They are working independently and getting them right!  Copying words is becoming much easier for most of them.  They love centers where they use the clipboards.  Markers are always a hit.
I'm still trying to figure out the book "bags."  I'm sure it will be much easier when I have more than one reader.  Right now they just tell the story by the pictures and retell the story.