Every year at Stafford Elementary the first graders always put on the play ‘Deep in the Jungle’. Now, last night like all the other performances of this play the cafeteria was packed with proud parents, teachers, students and friends. And as always these cute little first graders did a fantastic job.

Everywhere you looked you saw lions, crocodiles, ocelots, monkeys, zebras, snakes, cheetahs and elephants! If you didn’t know better, you might have been fearful, but once you saw the enthusiasm and smiles you knew you did not have a reason to be scared.

Circle of Life was sung with lots swaying and soft music. You were lulled into complacency until out on the stage runs three little monkeys running and skipping and having lots of fun like monkeys do. But all of a sudden here comes the crocodile (Bryce Ballard) and the monkeys started taunting the crocodile with, “Nana nana boo boo you can’t catch us”. The wiley crocodile was really strutting his stuff and entices the monkeys to come closer. All of a sudden the first monkey is gone. The crocodile snapped the monkey up and he kept on doing so until all the monkeys were gone.

The monkeys then came back on stage to delight us with their poem, “When You Talk to a Monkey”. Next up were the Crocodiles and the Ocellots to recite their poems.

Braylon Durham was up next as the Lion King singing I Just Can’t Wait to be King and following him were the rest of the lions reciting their poem about lions.

The cheetahs, snakes, zebras and the elephants took over the stage to recite their poems with lots of smiles.

To end this production the students sang and performed Hakuna Matata, Bahamas Pajamas, Bare Necessities and The Lion Sleeps Tonight.

And again another terrific performance by Stafford Elementary first graders.