We can't believe how quickly the last two weeks have flown by! We are still doing our Springy dance for warmer weather, but we are still very happy to spend most of our day outside! 

The last two weeks our kiddos have really enjoyed making pony bead keychains! Although we began with a guided flower keychain, many of our friends ventured out to create their own designs and some very cute animal friends! Natalie also offered a two part make your own scratch art; they began but creating a colorful pallet with oil pastels, filling the page with an array of colors, then painted over the oil pastels with black paint. The next day they scratched away making their own works of art! 

4/5/6  are still very much in their card game era and Phase 10 has taken over the last few weeks as the most popular game! There are ten phases  and each player must complete each phase in order such as, phase one starts with have two sets of the same number card, phase two is a run of four (which are four cards in consecutive order 1,2,3,4 or 6,7,8,9 etc.) and a set of three etc. This game is so much fun and although we've played each day, we have yet to complete all ten phases! 

We hope that everyone has an amazing week off  full of fun and relaxation so we can finish off the school year strong!

Another two weeks have flown by and love the energy the kiddos bring to each day! Again, we do our best to spend the end of our days outside, but with Mother Nature still debating between the two seasons we tend to play it by ear. With schedules changing for the kiddos (i.e. soccer, baseball, music etc.), please let us know upon pickup or via e-mail so we can make sure we can stay on top of correct pick-up times.

To celebrate St. Patricks Day, Natalie ran a "Lucky Dice Game." With such a large group and a pretty fast paced game, I believe everyone got lucky and with the prize being candy, 4/5/6 found themselves very motivated! With pom poms as game pieces, players would roll a die and each number had a different outcome: such as, 1: Pick one pom pom, 2: Give one pom pom to the player on your right, 3: skip your turn, 4: pick two pieces, 5: put one piece back in the middle and 6: steal one pom pom from someone else. The first to five pom poms won the round! 

In mentoring we visited second grade this week with a directed drawing of a llama, in honor of LEDP's mascot! The mentors did a wonderful job leading the activity one step at a time and although our artists were following the same steps, each llama turned out beautifully unique!

4/5/6 really has had such an amazing year thus far and we look forward to keeping up the energy and fun for the final push to June! 

Happy March! Jordan has officially been in LEDP for a month and the kiddos have had such an amazing time showing him the ropes and getting to know him! They have taught him some of our favorite games such as James Bond, Spoons, Beat the Deck and while outside Circle Soccer and blew his mind in the "new school" rules for Four Square! We are thrilled to have him join the team!

The last few weeks have definitely been filled with our eager veterans teaching Jordan LEDP essentials, but we've also had three amazing Mentoring activities! In third grade we created Pipe Cleaner Pals, creating our own figures out of pipe cleaners, straws and both pony beads and wooden ones! The best part was seeing how friends styled their pals hair and made their funny faces! We also had  spring inspired projects with both Kindergarten and first grade. In Kindergarten we made paper tulips where our friends traced three different color tulips, learned an accordion fold while mentors punched a hole where we then wove a straw through the middle creating a very cute bouquet! While in 1st grade we traced our hands on paper, practiced our cutting skills cutting our traced hands from the paper. We then used a pencil to curl our fingers to make the lily petals than created cone shape to weave in a pipe cleaner stem! The K and 1st grade bouquets came out so beautiful!  

We are also so excited to be welcoming the warmer weather and with the time change are happy to be spending more time outside! Our goal is finish our days outside when Mother Nature allows it! We look forward to the warmer days ahead! 

For your consideration we've also created an Amazon wishlist for LEDP with the link posted on the front page of the website. We thank you in advance for your generosity! 

Happy February! We are excited to announce and welcome our new 4//5/6 teacher Jordan! He has officially started with us and he has jumped right in with the kiddos welcoming him with open arms! As an alumni of the Brookline school system he is excited to return home and join the LEDP community! If you have a chance to say hello and introduce yourself, he would love to meet you!

This month we had our first snow day which left a winter wonderland for all our friends to build snow people and amazing igloos! Also mother nature limiting some of our usual spaces outside we have definitely utilized the basketball court which has also been an amazing avenue for Jordan to get to know some of our athletes! 

The last few weeks we've also had so much fun with both our mentoring activities- we made beautiful, heart shaped sun catchers with first grade and played a couple gym games with 2nd grade! Our mentors had so much fun leading, "Head, Shoulders, Knee, Dodgeball." In this game each 2nd grader were partnered up and lined up with a dodgeball between them. The mentors took turns heading the group, with commands, "head, shoulders knees," trying to trick out friends! When they hear the command. "dodgeball," they must try and grab the ball first! Whoever gets the ball first gets a point, but if they grab the ball on the wrong command, they lose a point! We also played "Tic-Tac-Toe Relay," which is always a fan favorite! 

February is a short month for us, but again we are so happy to welcome Jordan to the LEDP family and look forward to the remainder of the year ahead with him! We hope that everyone has a relaxing, fun-filled break and we will see you all in February's final week!

The last couple of weeks have brought us below freezing temperatures which has meant a lot more time inside!Although our 4/5/6 friends love playing outside, it's been a treat for them to have some extensive time in the gym! We have many basketball players in our group, many of which play on various teams- it's been really fun watching them continue practicing their skills and even more fun to see how they work together in pick-up games, after pick-up games! They truly never tire! They've also loved playing various versions of Battleship- a dodgeball game in which teams each have a mat, with one crew member whose job it is to retrieve dodgeballs to bring back to the ship- while others must stay aboard to knock down cones. The battleship with the last remaining, upright cone, wins.

We also have lots of architects who have made very impressive structures with these special blocks we have in LEDP along with our new addition of magnatiles, generously donated from a 4/5/6 family off our Amazon wish list!

We also have found a new obsession with a game a called Magnetism!  We have two variations, one that involves using a string to create a shape and the other with an actual game board. Friends split the very strong magnetic game pieces evenly among the players. Each player will put down their magnet in any opening within the string or board, without attracting other magnets. The first friend to run out of magnetic game pieces, wins! Although a simple concept, it has been quite competitive as it is most definitely harder than it appears! It has been a daily race to the cart for a round of Magnetism!

We hope Mother Nature relieves us from this bitter, cold weather (although would happily welcome a winter wonderland) to enjoy some outside time! We would just like to remind families to please send their kiddos with the proper winter attire- we strive to go outside each day, as long as it is safe to do so. Thank you in advance!

Happy New Year! We hope everyone had a fun, relaxing holiday break!

January sure brought in the winter chill which has meant a lot more inside time for LEDP! The last few weeks we jumped right back into mentoring with two awesome projects! We visited 3rd grade and did a "Mystery Bag," STEM challenge where teams were given a bag of mystery items and were challenged to create something that could launch a pom pom. Each team got two launches and then we averaged both distances to find the winner; with four teams in the running we had The Succeeders, The Nightmares, The Chickens and The Swim Slayers! The Succeeders, as their namesakes imply, were the victors- beating out The Swim Slayers by a mere 1 inch! The following week we visited the K group where we created handprint walrus'! Our friends practiced their cutting and tracing and mentors and teachers were so impressed with their fine motor skills! Please check out the Mentoring Page to see some of the final products!

The last couple of weeks 4/5/6 also created adorable 3D animal friends with paint markers and craft rolls with Natalie! We had some cute kitties, penguins and piggies! Natalie also led a make your own sticker project that attracted a large majority of 4/5/6!

Although Mother Nature has been throwing us some curveballs the last couple weeks we'd still love to remind families to send your kiddos with the proper to attire- if we are able to make it outside, getting some fresh air is always our goal! 

December was full of winter and holiday fun as well as 4/5/6 doing their best to make sure we send Will off with an awesome last couple of weeks with LEDP! 

4/5/6 really got into the holiday season and we spent the last couple weeks decorating some beautiful ornaments our artists were so excited to share with their families and to display their hard work on their Christmas trees! We also decorated Hanukkah dreidels and we learned that a true game of Dreidels use game pieces such as pennies or small chocolates and that you want to be the player with the most pieces and others are out when all of their pieces are gone. Nun means you do nothing, Gimel means you take the pot, Hey is you take half the pot and Shin is you put a game piece in! 

We also had an amazing time with second grade playing holiday themed Minute-To-Win-It games! Please check out the Mentoring page to see 2nd grade and the mentors in action!

We also earned our reward party and the kiddos voted on a Mario Kart tournament! We were all very excited to make such a special treat happen as we projected Mario and his friends up onto the wall so all of 4/5/6 could watch the races! We further celebrated with special treats in the cafe and it really was a perfect send off for Will and to begin our Holiday Break! We hope that everyone has an amazing, restful, Holiday break and we are excited to welcome 2025! Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to all!

4/5/6 had really gotten in their groove and we have been so impressed with how seamless most of our days have become considering being the largest group in LEDP! 

The last few Friday's 4/5/6 has had such a blast playing trivia with Will playing game show host! First week we had fifth graders verse fourth graders and this past Friday, they splits themselves up girls verse boys! Team names came to know little surprise with "The Blue Buttons," verse "The Boys!" "The Blue Buttons," won by a landslide, but with no love lost, "The Boys," are ready to make a comeback the next trivia day!

This week we also created yarn pumpkins with many friends hoping to help their grownups with some Thanksgiving decor! We used pieces of paper towel rolls as the pumpkins frame and made little slits along the top and bottom to weave the yarn around. We then used scrap parts of the paper towel roll to create the stem and wrapped green pipe cleaners to make a more realistic pumpkin, vines and all!

Mentors also met with Kindergarten and played a few gym games, Banana Tag and Penguin Waddle Race! The mentors and little ones had such a blast running around and many laughs were had in the silly relay race as our penguins waddled their way to the finish line!

We are thankful for a wonderful November with our kiddos and hope that everyone has a fun, relaxing Turkey Day with family and friends! 

The last few weeks have flown by and we are still adjusting to the sun setting before 5:00! As previously stated, we have adjusted our schedule a bit so that we are outside from 3:45-4:45 and end our days inside. This is also subject to change with the weather to consider and projects that we have planned for the afternoon. 

With 4/5/6 still grasping for as much as outside time as possible our highlights this last few weeks have been Mentoring with 3rd grade, NERD club officially in adventure mode and taking advantage of Friday's in the LEDP room! 

This week in mentoring we made 3D paper tabby cats! We had a lot of 4th grade mentors eager to rejoin their group from last year as they take on the leadership role and find themselves on the other side of the program! Again, Irene has been so impressed with the energy and enthusiasm our mentors have shown and she's thrilled to have such spirited group!

Looking ahead, we are excited to have more extravagant projects with more inside time fast approaching. We'd also just like to remind families that we will attempt to go outside for at least 30 minutes if the weather allows, so please, please, please send your kiddos with the proper attire. 

First and foremost, we'd like to thank all the families that joined us on our first Parent Night! The kiddos were so excited to have their grownups join 4/5/6 for an evening- playing some of their favorite boardgames and creating beautiful Jack-o'-lantern masterpieces just in time for Halloween! 

The end of October seemed to almost be fully dedicated to the game of Risk! Will organized a large game of the famous board game, teaching  friends strategy and tactics as they teamed up to try and take over as many territories as they could! We were amazed to see that with each passing day more and more friends were interested to join in on the fun!

As Natalie found that paper fidget toys were so popular earlier this month and were in high demand- she offered a similar project that proved to be just as popular! We've gotten a lot of feedback that friends have taken it upon themselves to show their friends outside of LEDP how to make them and have returned with some very cool fidgets to show off!

Also back by popular demand, Nerd Club also known as Dungeons & Dragons has begun! Although our former dungeon master, Sam, isn't here this year, our very own, Jonah in 6th grade has kindly offered to take on this role! He generously organized a group together of six friends that will meet every Thursday to move through a year long adventure! We are so excited that we were able to continue Nerd Club this year and thank Jonah for making that happen!

Just looking ahead, with the time change happening next week we want to remind parents that we will be shifting our schedule to accommodate earlier sunsets, so it will be more important to let the 4/5/6 teachers know accurate pick up times. We will be going out sooner and ending our days inside. Similarly, we want to remind families that we attempt going outside every day even if it's for a short period of time (weather permitting), so please makes sure to send your kiddos with the appropriate attire. Thank you in advance and we look forward to another month of fun!

We have definitely felt Mother Nature's shift from summer sunshine to the chill of Autumn! It's been a jammed packed two weeks with 4/5/6 still adjusting to our flow of the day and adhering to our groups rules and expectations.

We started October with a paper fidget project that got the attention of nearly half our group! It was a lengthy project that took some patience with lots of folding and maneuvering of finished pieces- but very much worth the wait and effort! It was really fun watching the process of these fidget masterpieces and lent the opportunity for lots of laughs and further getting to know one another!

With paper planes a daily obsession, Will challenged our aviators to a paper plane contest that would be judged on design, name and the level of success of flight. Our pilots had an amazing time creating different planes and the best time sending them off to the skies!

This month also marked the start of the Mentoring Program! We have a total of 21 mentors this year and Irene is already so impressed with the energy and excitement surrounding mentoring! Each year we start off with "Cat & Mouse," as the parachute is always the perfect way to be active and playful with both the newest and eldest members of LEDP! It was a bit of a windy day, which only added more excitement to confusing our cat during each round! We are so proud of all our mentors, as each friend really stepped up and displayed their amazing leadership skills!

We've had a really fun start to October and we are excited to announce our first of four Open House's of the year! We invite you to join us on Wednesday, October 30 from 5:00-5:45 in the Big LEDP Room! Please be on the lookout for more information via e-mail! We hope to see you all there!

We have had an amazing start to the school year and we're so happy to welcome our new teacher, Will a.k.a Shoop! 

With fourth grade making up most of our group we have definitely spent the first few weeks of September going over our routines, rules and expectations. We are so proud of our fifth and sixth graders for stepping up to the plate and leading by example!

We have spent most of our time getting to know one another, welcoming Shoop into LEDP and taking advantage of summers lingering warmth! We will say that the game of Life and Clue  have taken up the majority of any choice time with our friends racing for the boardgames and us needing to invest in more than one of each for our cart. Some other highlights include paper fidgets, frog origami and racing them on a track and learned Musical Dodgeball! Musical Dodgeball is played similarly to the original game of dodge, but music is playing and when the music stops you must drop the dodgeball and freeze or you are out! It was so much fun dancing to some jams while playing our favorite gym game! Although we haven't had much gym time, we still managed some memory, capture the flag and tag!

Some reminders to note is that with daylight savings coming up our schedule will change with our group finishing up our days inside, therefore it will be especially important for pick up times to be accurate.

Looking ahead we will begin mentoring in October- our friends are so excited to jump into groups and spend some time with the younger kiddos to  lead an activity! Irene, Natalie and Will are thrilled with the start of this school year and look forward to a spooky filled October!