Hello 1st Grade Families!

We have had a wonderful year in LEDP. The children loved participating in a variety of activities, sports, arts activities and free choice. These last few weeks have still been filled with excitement. We celebrated LEDP “Birthday” where the kiddos worked hard making bead buddies to display for all of their peers. We also finished decorating our box for the K+ 1 classroom. This week the 1st graders mixed fizzing potions, played with ballon rockets, made tissue paper sun catchers and wrote heart felt letters to the new 1st graders who will arrive next year. 

Thank you all for your support during the school year and we hope everyone has a wonderful summer! We cannot wait to see you all in the Fall!

Hello 1st Grade Families! The 1st grade team has been so blown away from the amazing engagement these past few weeks!

Most recently we all participated in this years Walk-A-Thon! The first graders did an amazing job walking, running, decorating posters and cheering on their buddies! 

The first graders have also been LOVING decorating one of our classroom fixtures. We began by painting a base coat, adding our green vines and now we are paining and decorating. We have also had fun exploring with bath bomb “potions”, painting light, and exploring the effects of osmosis on gummy bears!  We have been loving the warm weather and have been enjoying playing with all the worms, caterpillars and bugs we find. 

Hello First Grade Families! We have had a very eventful few weeks! Once the kids returned from April break the teachers decided to remove our weekly themes, and just run activities based around passions and interest of the students and teachers. This flexibility in activities will also be more similar to what you child will experience in the 2nd grade LEDP program. Since that change the children have enjoyed studying plants, making sceneries, exploring bath bomb potions and more! 

We are so excited that the weather has continued to get warmer and warmer. Even on rainy days the children have loved playing in the mud, making “food” out of nature and seeing all of the new blooms. We have also been reading some amazing stores in first grade like the “Knight Owl” series along with “Where the Sidewalk Ends” and more. 

We are extremely excited for our walk a thon which will be here before you know it! The children have done an amazing job comprehending this year’s cause, and have even been making some personal life connections. We loved the visit from the Goddard House and trying out their acrylic paint activity, and we have also been learning more through different books we have bought. 

If you have any questions about our walk a thon please do not hesitate to reach out!

One last reminder that we attempt to spend as much time outside as possible, that includes being outside when it may be lightly raining. If you would like to send your child in with extra LEDP clothes to  keep in their cubby, please send them in a labeled bag! 

Hello LEDP 1st grade families!

The children have been having a great few weeks. They were so excited to explore our healthy food themed week! We made a variety of tasty treats like chocolate avocado pudding, smoothies, cereal bars, ants on a log and shaken whipped butter! The children love both assisting in the recipes and trying the samples.

The weather has been up and down these past few weeks but we have been doing our best to still get outside and run around!  We are excited to see the weather turning around to sunnier and warmer days in these coming weeks and plan to spend as much time enjoying the sunshine as possible! 

We hope that everyone has a relaxing and fun-filled April break! We can't believe how quickly the end of the school is approaching, but look forward to more sunshine and more adventures together!

Hello first grade families! We have had a great past two weeks in LEDP. The children have been loving outside, rock exploration, soccer, beading and the slide that is now open again! While the field is closed for re-seeding,  the children have enjoyed hanging out on the small playground and moving around the track with teachers. 

Activities have been flowing! We have covered Spring time and Author’s. Spring time was filled with making a collaborative hand print rainbow, making paper chains and discovering more about frogs. The children were so excited when Natsu brought in 2 love frogs for the children to study! We compared the similarities and differences for both frogs. 

This week we are covering famous children’s book authors! We stared by making collages just like Eric Carle, and constructed silly houses like Dr. Seuss. The children also had an opportunity to follow a Mo Willems video to try creating Piggie, Gerald and the Pigeon. We wrapped up the week learning about Ian Falconer and among their own Olivia puppets! 

As the season changes, please continue to send your child in with cozy clothes so they can remain nice and warm even when getting picked up the end of our day! 

Hi 1st Grade Families! These past few weeks we have been covering Music, Arctic Animals, and Pirate Adventures!! During our Music week, the children have played a sound guessing game, learned about the human ear, composed their own piano song, and even did some music interpretation. Arctic Animals week was one of our last nods to winter before the changing of the season! We covered polar bears, seals, walruses and reindeer. The children were particularly intrigued in the walrus live stream we found. Pirate Adventures week has been filled with DIY Aged Maps, mathematic treasure hunts, and even counting down pirate money. 

The children have also been enjoying some classic activities such as sewing, magnet tiles, math facts on a white board and beading.  

The weather these past few weeks have been so nice we have been spending plenty of time outside. The children have LOVED all of the melted snow and mud. We have been allowing the first graders to explore the mud and natural consequences. We remind children that if they choose to play in the water or mud they may get wet. If they are okay with that they can continue, if they are not then they can find something else to do. We have seen so many smiles and discovery outside, it’s making the teachers want to hop right in. 

Please consider sending your child in with extra clothing such as socks, and pants for their LEDP cubby for our rainy and muddy outdoor fun! The clothing will allow your child to enjoy the excitement of the outdoors, but the comfort of spending the remainder of the day dry. 

Hello 1st grade families! We have been having a wonderful few weeks leading up to our February Vacation. We were very excited to introduce two new teachers to the first graders. Francesca is joining us as a new full time teacher and Juan will join us as a substitute on various days through the week. The children have been very interested in learning more about them, what activities they like and the games they like to play. The children have also been loving the “LEDP Kids” word searches during quiet time. We have seen so much wonderful collaboration. 

Last week we enjoyed some challenges in our Engineering themed week. We read wonderful stories such as Papas Mechanical Fish and Iggy Peck, Architect. The children explored a variety of activities such as building with pasta and marshmallows, creating with legos like a Lego Engineer, and even giving some input of what they would have in a echo if they could design it. 

This week we are becoming Spies and Detectives.  We started the week off by going over Morse code, and creating Morse code necklaces. We then covered DIY periscopes, played an I-spy game and even discovered more about our finger prints. The children also enjoyed the stories Detective Mole and Detective Doughnut and the Wild Goose Chase. We have also been annoying the slightly warmer weather and playing in the snow! As the days get a little longer we are excited to spend even more time outside! 

Hello 1st Grade Families!

We have had an emotional 2 weeks here in the LEDP classroom. We are very sad to see our wonderful teacher Henry move to pursue a wonderful acting opportunity in NYC. The children have been making him cards and beautiful crafts since he broke the news. We have been taking time to remember the fun times we have had and wish him well. 

Out teacher activity themes have been been bouncing all round. We completed a “Fairy Tale” theme and a “Hand Craft” theme. 

During fairy tale week the children had opportunities to design fairy wings, act out a fairy tale, add their hand prints to a Japanese dragon, and try their hand at making their own fairy tale. 

This week we have moved over towards hand crafts for the children to try. One hand craft we introduced was finger weaving! The children had a blast attempting to finger weave a snake. Some children also opted to try out hand sewing! We had some LSA “hip stitch” experts help show us the ropes of what they have already learned. 

A few reminders, please be sure you send your child in with snow gear so we can have a blast staying cozy while playing in this amazing snow! We would also recommend a second change of clothes for your child to keep in their LEDP cubby incase of any accidents or slips in puddles. 

Hello 1st grade families! 

We have had an exciting past few weeks in our program. We welcomed everyone back from winter vacation and were off rolling again!

Since our last update we have covered a variety of themes such as Farming, Winter and The Human Body. The children have had the opportunity to complete projects such as guessing where different crops are grown, ice fishing with string, making snowflake crowns and creating  a pair of 'lungs'. The children have still loved making bead buddies, learning new card games and building some pretty impressive structures out of magnet tiles! 

We would like to remind families to pack warm gear for their children. When the weather is too cold, we play and burn off our energy in the gym, but when it's just warm enough, we all prefer being outside! 

Hello 1st Grade Families!

1st grade has had an exciting few weeks. The children have been LOVING making "Bead Buddies". This craft involves planning what beads to use, measuring string lengths, and weaving the elastic string through the beads to reach a desired shape! 

Teacher activities have been blasting off! We had the opportunity to cover "Outerspace" week where we talked about the planets, constellations, rocketships and different astronaut jobs on a space mission. The children got to measure the planets (to a reduced scale) and were able to see the amazing size differences between Jupiter and the other planets. 

We also covered "Ocean pt 2". We originally had an ocean theme week, but due to unforeseen circumstances, we were not able to complete all of the activities planned. But this ocean week was filled with learning about the depths of the ocean and its zones, watching a buoyancy experiment, making a mini aquarium, and guessing the sizes of different sea life!

This week we are working through "Artists and Their Mediums". We are having a variety of artists, some the children may be familiar with and some they may not have heard of. Some familiar names may include Jackson Pollock, and Leonardo da Vinci. Some unfamiliar artists may include Maria Marinez, a famous pottery maker and Roberto Benavidez, a famous paper mache artist.  

As a reminder, the teachers have been taking the sun's setting time into consideration when we go outside, so our time outside is slightly shorter, but it is still our goal to be outside as much as we can! 

Hello 1st Grade Families!

We have had a very exciting few weeks. The first graders have been really enjoying friendship bracelets, bead making and Mancala! The first graders have also been interested in our rotting pumpkin project, they are very curious why it’s “looking fuzzy” and seeing the seeds take root in the soil. These past two weeks have covered “Imagination Week” and “Bug Week”. 

“Imagination Week” was a wonderful collaboration of creating our own story characters, playing a production line machine sound game, and creating storylines for pictures their classmates drew. Another project the kids are working on is dictating what is happening in a wordless picture book. We will later type out their dictations, and tape them into the book giving them words! 

“Bug Week” will give the children a wonderful dive into bugs vs insects, learning about metamorphosis, and marking a very fun fingerprint bug craft. Considering how much the students have been enjoying our other animal related themes, we are not surprised they have taken a liking to these creepy crawlies. 

A few reminders moving forward, although we have had some nice weather, the forecast is definitely predicting a larger cool down. Please make sure your children are attending with cool weather clothing, because we do anticipate spending at least 30-45 minutes outside in the afternoon!