Proud parents and family members filled the Chartiers Valley Primary School cafeteria Thursday afternoon in support of their second-graders in an environment-themed presentation “The Rainforest.”
Debbie Soles and Colleen Mutschler, both second grade teachers at the school, teamed up with their students in classrooms to present an adaptation of the book “The Great Kapok Tree,” by Lynne Cherry. According to Soles, the duo has done the play for eight years now.
“We have been doing the Rainforest play for a number of years,” said Soles. “This year we had a grant for the first time.”
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A grant from The Consortium of Public Education is helping to promote literacy and reading over the summer at the library. The small stage was decorated with a large handmade tree, bright paper flowers, rainforest patterned fabric and stuffed animals that typically live in the rainforest. The students wore fun hats and masks, and some had full costumes.
Soles, who is retiring after this school year, wrote the second grades rendition.
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“I rewrote it so every child had at least one line,” she said. “We had 44 students involved, but a few were not in school today and others went home (on foreign exchange).”
Furthermore, Soles rewrote Mutschler’s favorite children’s song, “Swinging on a Star,” to become their own musical adaptation “Would You Like to Now be a Star,” which every student participated in singing at the end of the show. They even had hand and body movements for representing animals throughout the song.
Students all memorized their lines and learned a song.
“We started preparing and practicing about two months ago,” she said.
In addition to having a play about saving the rainforests, Nicole Cook, Shanthi Mayadam, Gopi Godugu and Anna Francis presented three short book reports on books they read about the rainforest.
The second grade students did a wonderful job at presenting the environmental play. They really seemed to enjoyed themselves and it was evident they all learned a lot about the rainforest.
At the end of the play there was a short presentation from the Bridgeville Public Library and Scott Township Library to tie in with the campaign of the importance of literacy. A spokeswoman from each library was there to promote fun summer activities children can be involved in and also to talk about the summer reading clubs both libraries offer.
