Enrichment Programs

Alvin Ailey Dance Program
Alvin Ailey Dance Program introduces West African, creative movement and modern dance to students. Classes are taught by a professional dancer and percussionist from Alvin Ailey’s Arts in Education Program.

Art & Music
Through generous donations, OLL is able to offer Creative Classrooms, a visual arts program, for all grades. Our professionally trained art instructor teaches children to experiment and create in a variety of art-making processes and techniques. Students explore self-expression through the visual arts and gain the skills necessary to communicate their ideas in a variety of art mediums. The students participate in field trips to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art.

We also offer Learning to Look, a program funded by Inner-City Scholarship Fund, that exposes students to art and encourages them to explore their own feelings and narratives in relation to art. The class uses slides, lecture, and monthly demonstrations to explore art with 2nd-5th grade students. The students and teachers then visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see the original art work that they have studied. OLL hosts an annual Art Show every Spring.

Music is important to the curriculum at OLL. During music class students are taught the fundamentals of note-reading, tempo, and singing. Annually, OLL presents a Christmas Concert and a Spring Concert. The OLL Choir has performed at many different events. In past years, they sang at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, PA.

Chess
A person with the facility to win at chess is ready to conquer any complex problem on either a personal or business level. Chess learning helps to develop thinking skills, enhances mental prowess and directly contributes to academic performance and makes people smarter. 

• Chess at 3 works with our youngest students, telling stories that transform the chess pieces into a memorable cast of characters. These characters have quirky qualities that help children understand how the chess pieces move. Chess at Three students learn about sportsmanship, grit, and math, all through stories, movement and music.
• Premier Chess works with students in grades 1 and above and is taught by one of the city’s finest Chess Masters. Students will start competing in tournaments in 2020. 

Italian Pre-K-4th grades 
Basic and introduction to conversational Italian are taught including writing and reading.  Students receive instruction once a week.  Classes incorporate media through the use of computers, art, music, and more.

Science Lab
Our newly renovated Science Lab offers state-of-the-art resources including but not limited to a SMART Board, microscopes, and more.  Kindergarten through 8th grade attends weekly lab sessions.  OLL hosts an Annual Science Fair and participates in the District Science Fair.  

Technology

Weekly classes are held for all students in our Media Center equipped with 32 flat screen work-stations with WIFI. Classes are led by our technology education provider, CodeSpeak Labs. 

Grades PreK - 2nd grade focus on building blocks of computational thinking, commanding robots and sequencing instructions. 

3-5th grade students use Scratch, a block based programming language invented by MIT. Students learn how to create animations and use them to create video games.

Grade 6 learn JavaScript to create apps for tablets and mobile devices. They learn how to use the built-in functions to program what happens when the use taps or drags on the screen.

Grade 7 focuses on Website Development, using HTML/CSS/JS languages. Students become website creators and create their own website for a business or social cause.

Grade 8 students are introduced to Python, a general purpose professional coding language that is popular for its versatility. Using Python, they create algorithms using all the features of the language.

Our after-school enrichment CodeSpeak program, offered to Grades 3, 4 and 5, allows students to design their own video games, including using graphic design tools to design their own characters and backdrops. 6th to 8th Grade students will learn to create web apps to play on any device. Students learn JavaScript code, the most popular language of the web, and are guided through basic programming functions, and coached through creating their own projects.