Dance-A-Thon Success

The Dance-A-Thon was a huge success.  

We surpassed our school goal!  Here are some photos and videos highlighting our P.E. performances. Our P.E. coaches were amazing at getting the first graders moving and grooving!

100% participation from 1S families--That is AWESOME!  

Thank you for supporting our school and classroom!

Dance-A-Thon!

Last year, several pieces of technology for our first grade classroom were purchased with funds earned by the O.B. Dance-A-thon.

This year the Dance-A-Thon returns in hopes of earning more funds to make technology one-to-one for our first grade classrooms. 

Students can access these devices to improve their achievement in literacy, mathematics, and other content areas.

Please consider making a donation to our O.B. Dance-A-Thon. You can also ask family members to contribute as well. The Dance-A-Thon is so much fun, and it's for a great cause-- our 1st graders! Here is the link to donate.  Thank you for considering!

Partner Work During Math and Literacy Instruction

Working with a partner involves cooperative learning which goes hand-in-hand with social and emotional learning.

When working with partners, students must become more self aware, recognize feelings, and understand strengths and weaknesses.

Students improve relationship skills by working to maintain positive relationships with others. Students also practice responsible decision making by making choices that positively impact or contribute to the partnership or common goal.  

When working with a partner, there is usually an increased engagement and students become more actively involved in the learning process.

Mixing up the structure between independent, whole group, and partner activities in the classroom keeps things interesting.  It also allows the learner to experience learning in different ways-- in order to enhance instructional effectiveness and increase achievement.

Welcome to First Grade!

Welcome to our new first graders in 1S!  So excited to begin our year together! 

We have been completing many activities to get to know each other.  

We played a game called "Find a Friend."  For this game, you gather signatures from people in the class that can answer yes to a specific statement.  For example, "Find a friend with different color eyes than you" or "Find a friend that rode a bike this summer."

We also wrote some things about ourselves that we wanted to share with the class. 

Finally, we culminated with making a class web.  This web is a symbol to remind us to respect each other, hold each other up, and make our class stronger by trying to work together.  

Excited for what is to come for us- learning and growing together!  

Farewell First Grade

Click here to see our Farewell video.

I will miss you, 1S students!  It was a great year.

Spring Harvest

The time had come... it was time to pick the fruits of our labor. 

We started with our pea pods. The students learned the method of twist and pull-- a lot like picking apples off of an apple tree.

We tried out the peas right in the garden.  They were so sweet and crisp.  Removing them from the pod was a little tricky.

Then we moved on to picking the radishes.  Students learned to tug right where the stem meets the soil.  They were surprised every time they pulled as each radish was slightly different in size.

Finally, we moved on to the strawberry section of our garden.  The students were the most excited about picking these as they were voted the most favorite fruit in our class. 

We took the fruits of our labor into the school building and were excited to try them after lunch.

Washed and tried them right away without even slicing.

Fun times in the O.B. Garden!

Writer's Workshop

We culminated our Realistic Fiction unit with an Author's Celebration.  Students shared their Realistic Fiction pieces with peers.

 Students became very confident at writing this genre by the end of the unit.  They understood the concept of characters, setting, problem, and solution.  

After completing our Realistic Fiction unit, students have been trying out a new genre, Poetry.  The poems that students have written have been impressive.  We have been very entertained during Author's Chair.  Some poems are deep, some poems are light-hearted, some poems have been really funny.  We have loved writing Poems.