"More homework, please" is not a request usually heard from fourth-graders. But that's what students at South Park Elementary School say about the papier-mache puppets they fashioned from recycled homework and other school papers and paraded around the school Monday.
"Because they used homework for the layering, if we ran low on the paper, the students would say 'more homework please.' It was funny and not what you'd expect to hear coming out of their mouths," said Cheryl Capezzuti, of the North Side, who came to the school as an Artist-in-Residence for 20 days during February.
Ms. Capezzuti is a puppet maker and visual artist as well as the producer of Pittsburgh's First Night parade on New Year's Eve.
More than 180 fourth-graders each made a puppet and helped create three larger puppets with moving parts that will remain on display in the school. The students paraded their creations through school halls Monday to celebrate.
The puppets were made almost exclusively with recycled materials.
"We call them puppets, but they are almost like masks," said Jodie Robinson, art teacher.
"They turn their whole body into a puppet; it's an opportunity to transform yourself," Ms. Capezzuti said.
Most students chose to make fantasy creatures, such as dragons, but others chose animals, such as pigs, cows and bears.
Each Monday during the past month, students worked on the puppets in their 40-minute art class.
"She's taught them how to make recycled paper and cardboard come alive," Ms. Robinson said.
For Ms. Robinson, it's a long-awaited dream come true. She began with the district 34 years ago and taught "art on a cart" for the first 25 years. "You have to have an art room to have an artist-in-residence come," Ms. Robinson said. The school added an art room in 2001.
"I've waited all of my career to have an artist in residence come to our school," Ms. Robinson said.
Total cost for the project was $4,000. To make the project happen, Ms. Robinson used the $1,000 in prize money she was awarded from Wal-Mart in 2008 as Teacher of the Year. The school's Parent Teacher Organization raised another $1,000. The final $2,000 was in the form of a grant made possible through the Arts in Education Partnership of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.
Typically, projects with the schools last 10 days.
Each fourth-grader will take a puppet home. The larger puppets with moving parts will remain on display at the school.
First Published: March 4, 2010, 4:30 p.m.