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Photo by Kevin Anderson

Fourth-grader Vicky Hoover recites a poem called "Boa Constrictor" as she is swallowed up in a sleeping bag.

Photo by Kevin Anderson

Fifth-grader J.T. Johnson was "Rockin the Blues" on his alto sax along with his band mates at the talent show.

Photo by Kevin Anderson

Between some of the talent acts, third-grader Cail Isabell provided some comic relief by telling jokes.

Delaware Ridge Elementary students, staff and parents were treated Friday to a show whose format may have sounded old-fashioned.

The term "variety show" may, for some, evoke the Ed Sullivan Show; much like the television revue that gave America its first taste of the Beatles, the Delaware Ridge show featured live entertainment - singing, dancing, poetry and jokes.

As quaint as the show's format may sound to some adult ears, the act that drew the most enthusiastic applause from students was a rap quartet by the name of the McGee Boys.

Fourth-graders Jordan Pouncil, Aaron and DeVante McGee, and third-grader JaDon Pouncil performed for the show's last act "We Fly."

Between stanzas featuring all four standing around and singing into the microphone, each of the four traded turns at the microphone. Each boy wore a T-shirt with his real or stage name on it, and busted hip-hop dance moves while singing or backing up the other singers. The boys said afterward that they all wrote the song together and had been practicing it for a month.

Third-grader Kaitlyn Rose was another hit with the audience, singing "Once Upon A December" from the Disney movie "Anastasia." Kaitlyn said afterward she'd been singing the song since she was in kindergarten, and that she liked the song from her favorite movie because it stayed in the lower notes.

"I can't sing high," Kaitlyn said. "I like singing low."

After Kaitlyn, came fifth-graders Larissa Mitchell and Patience McCormick, who after a couple of technical difficulties with the stereo playing their instrumental accompaniment, sang in its entirety the Avril Lavigne song "Sk8er Boi."

The show featured a recitation of two Shel Silverstein poems: "Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout," by first-grader Erica Brady, and "Boa Constrictor" by fourth-grader Vicky Hoover. Each had her own prop appropriate to the poem, with a few bags of stuffed trash bags for Brady, and Hoover pulled a sleeping bag up over her body as she said the poem.

There was even jazz, with the fifth-grade trio of trombonists Jon Nay and Vince Roult and saxophonist J.T. Johnson playing "Rockin' The Blues."

Between acts, third-grader Cail Isabell, dressed in a flat cap, tie and suspenders, amused the audience with cornball jokes, and fifth-grader Cole Henley emceed the proceedings.

The show was organized by Emily McDonnell, DRE media center specialist, and Rachel Williams, music educator.

Williams said the show was meant to highlight three of the five character traits emphasized by Expeditionary Learning: integrity, quality and passion. That meant performances had to meet a maximum-time-limit requirement of five or six minutes and there would be no lip synching. Williams said she told the students, "I don't want to hear Mariah Carey - I want to hear you."

If the act was dancing, Williams said, the students "need to have taken dance lessons."

Not necessarily from a studio, Williams said, but at the least from a teacher at the school.

"We just want to make sure kids know what hard work and perseverance is," Williams said.

To get in the show, students had to try out to make sure their performance met Williams' requirements.

The variety show was followed by a send-up of a television show, "Are you Smarter Than A Delaware Ridge Explorer?"

The game was in fact a show scripted by fifth-grade teacher Melissa Kennedy to show off the facts each class learned in the course of their Expeditionary Learning investigations this year. Kennedy and Whitney Mitchell played the contestants, while Cole Henley played the part of game show host.

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