Creative learning

Kemptown students discover art of puppetry

Thursday, Nov. 2, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo Tom fedor⁄the gazette Kemptown Elementary School fourth-grader Erin Formulak (right) rehearses with puppets with classmates Courtney Mellon (center) and Megan McClean, all students in Abby Horman’s class.

Armed with small pools of yellow, royal blue, lime green and magenta artist paint and brushes, the students were ready to paint their clay and paper puppets and bring them to life for the stage. But before the young puppeteers dipped and dabbed their brushes in the paint, Strunge wanted them to think outside of the box with color.

‘‘These are fun puppets. We want them to be bright,” Strunge said. ‘‘Just because you have a chicken doesn’t mean it has to be white.”

The Black Cherry Puppet Theatre, based in Baltimore, came to Kemptown Elementary in Monrovia through a grant from the Maryland State Arts Council and money raised by the school’s PTA.

With the help and instruction of Kemptown Elementary’s art teacher Bonnie Velasco, PTA volunteers and Black Cherry Puppet Theatre instructors, all fourth-grade classes will create a series of puppet shows from start to finish and present them to the entire school.

Working in small groups, the students took inspiration from classic stories such as ‘‘Jack and the Beanstalk” and wrote their own original scripts. The ‘‘hand and rod” puppets they made out of newspaper, masking tape, clay and a wooden dowel are the characters in their stories.

Puppets that resembled witches, dogs, people, rhinoceroses and horses were carefully placed in crates in the available space in the classroom and out of harm’s way.

After the students finish embellishing their puppets with brightly colored and textured fabric, beads and detailing, the process of building a general cardboard stage where all groups can perform with their puppets begins, Velasco said. Although the school will keep the completed stage for future shows, students will be able to take their own puppets home.

According to Velasco, the Black Cherry Puppet Theatre allows her to integrate the two subjects of art and Language Arts into one project.

Aside from this project, Velasco said she tries to incorporate different subject areas such as math, science and social studies into art for her students. Geometry, math and chemistry all make their way into Velasco’s teaching.

She also plays different types of music in her classroom from all genres, she said, and often asks her students to evaluate a piece of art, discuss it and then create a story from it.

Instructors Strunge and Kristen Faber said the Black Cherry Puppet Theatre teaches students to follow through with their ideas and projects and combines fun with education.

‘‘It’s a whole other realm of expression they can explore,” Faber said.

Nine-year-old student Katie Davis carefully painted red lips on her brown-and-black wolf puppet, a central character in her show, ‘‘Piggy Pie,” a story about a hungry and greedy witch. She explained how the first part of making her puppet with newspaper and tape resembled the shape of cotton candy.

‘‘It’s very interesting learning how to make it,” Katie said. ‘‘I can’t wait to present it to some of the kids in the school.”

At the same table, Deana Dixon, 9, painted her horse puppet with rose-colored paint for her group’s script, ‘‘Jack and the Beanstalk.” The horse is the narrator, Deana said, and her classmate, Zach Cummings, has the main character and puppet, Jack.

Zach said he chose ‘‘Jack” for his character since the name rhymes with his. The fun part will be performing with his puppet, Zach said.

‘‘I like how we have to use the puppets and talk at the same time,” Zach said.

Although the opening performance is weeks away and the students have yet to learn how to manipulate their puppets, the project has them excited, Velasco said.

‘‘It’s fabulous. The kids are so enthused about it,” she said.