The end of summer school featured Olympics-themed fun and an art explosion for nearly 500 elementary school students on Thursday.

Housed at Elephant’s Fork Elementary School, the “LEAP” program provided math and reading remediation for students from across the city and also exposed nearly two dozen rising kindergarteners with no preschool experience to the school world.

LEAP, which stands for Learning and Enrichment for Academic Progress, also featured afternoon sessions in fun activities like art, sports, creative dance, gardening and hands-on science experiments. Each student picked two afternoon enrichment sessions they wanted to participate in during the five weeks.

“The kids actually enjoy coming to summer school,” said Kecia Taliaferro, who works at King’s Fork Middle School during the regular school year. She led art enrichment activities during the afternoon sessions.

“I liked it,” confirmed Amari Moseley, a student in one of Taliaferro’s sessions. “It was fun.”

Garrick Rhoads and Dana Bilby, assistant principals at Elephant’s Fork and Hillpoint elementary schools, respectively, were the co-administrators of the LEAP program. They said the students made tremendous academic progress in only 19 school days.

“When we look at the data, there was a lot of academic growth,” Rhoads said.

Taliaferro said even the enrichment activities were reinforcing academic concepts. Students in her art class learned shapes as they worked on stained-glass pieces, learned measurements as they mixed concrete for stepping stones and studied animals of tropical climates to make animal masks.

“They had fun, and I think that’s what’s important,” she said. “This was a collaborative effort that really benefited the kids.”

This is the second year of the program, which had lots of community support. The United for Children initiative of the United Way of South Hampton Roads provided more than $150,000 through partners including the Obici Healthcare Foundation, Suffolk Foundation, Birdsong Peanuts, Wells Fargo and Bank of America. The Early Childhood Development Commission and the Suffolk Education Foundation also provided funding.

Many community volunteers provided enrichment programs and other resources for the students. High school students volunteered their time, and students from Old Dominion University also delved into the educational experience.

“I don’t think we would be able to do it without them,” Suffolk Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Deran Whitney said of the community partners.

Last year’s LEAP program was so successful that school officials not only continued it but also expanded the model to the middle-school summer school this year.

“We’re more than proud to support this program with our partners,” said Andrea Lowe of the United Way’s United for Children. “We are so excited to see the gains the kids have made in reading and math and the fun they’ve had.”

Rick Spencer, program resource officer for the Obici Healthcare Foundation, said the organization encouraged a physical activity component in the program.

“If they start young, they’ll be more inclined to continue physical activity as they get older,” he said.

Pedometers provided by Healthy Suffolk provided a physical and math challenge to the students. The class with the most steps — more than 15 million — each received Chick-fil-A gift cards during Thursday’s Olympics-themed closing ceremony, where each class represented a country.

In addition, three bicycles were given away — one each to a boy and a girl drawn at random from those who had perfect attendance during the program, and one to a boy drawn at random from students who attended the woodworking enrichment. The third bicycle had been built from scrap during the class.