- Seaford Union Free School District
- Overview
School Art Project Shows How Manor Rocks
To celebrate Earth Day, literacy, art and the spirit of cooperation, Seaford Manor Elementary School students participated in a schoolwide rock painting project in April that drew inspiration from two books.
The idea of a rock garden was born out of the title of the winning book in the school’s March Madness book bracket, “The Legend of Rock Paper Scissors.” The fish designs that children created for their rocks were sparked by “Only One You,” a book that celebrates everyone’s uniqueness.
Students in kindergarten, first and second grade classes partnered with third, fourth and fifth graders to come up with ideas for their rocks. Once the fish designs were created, the older buddies did the painting under the supervision of art teacher Jamie LaSota and parent volunteers.
Principal Debra Emmerich said that a copy of “Only One You” was given to her by a couple of years ago by the Hoehn family. Fifth grader Kayla Hoehn is among a group of six students that also includes Alexandra DiBlasi, Linda Donovan, Victoria Stebner, Meghan Stovall and Camryn Umhafer who periodically meet with Ms. Emmerich to come up with beautification and community building ideas for the school. It was during one of their brainstorming sessions that they saw the book and the rockfish idea came to fruition. Alexandra and her father later collected the rocks that were used for the painting project.
“It was a special project because we made these rocks with our buddies,” Victoria said. “We got to make of a memory of us in the school.”