Second Grade Class Sings to School Board About Respect

The Millburn Board of Education was given a look into a unique project Monday night that a second-grade has been working on at Hartshorn Elementary School — a musical retelling of 'Stone Soup' as an international project. 

"What started with this little video conference with this school in Canada turned into this really unique project," Eric Demel, the elementary school's computer science teacher and video conferencing corodinator, said.

Using its studies on folklore and fairy tales the class retold the story "Stone Soup" in song, the second-grade teacher Amy Blake explained.

The project was an international collaboration with a school in Manitoba, Canada. The Canadian school put out a calling for a project that would retell a story through music, Demel responded. 

Demel, being Hartshorn's video conferencing coordinator, sent the opportunity to Blake knowing she incorporates music into her teaching.

"That's how this project came to be," Blake said. 

Using the curriculum in second-grade, Blake mixed the international project in by studying many versions of the story, 'Stone Soup,' while analyzing plot, characters and story.

Blake and Demel worked with the students, teaching them how to tell a story through a lyric while focusing on rhythm and phrasing. 

"Mr. Demel happens to be a musician as well as a songwriter so I knew this was going to work really well," Blake said. 

Demel wrote and recorded the music for the project. He also took the computer lab in Hartshorn and transformed it into a recording studio for the class. 

Blake thanked the PTO, the Education Foundation and the Board of Education for the technology in Hartshorn. 

"Without the technology this never would have come to be," she said.