One hundred fourth-grade students at Manzanita Elementary School are spending eight to nine hours making complex rod puppets with master puppet maker Gwen Ray.
The puppets will be used in curriculum development for the next month or so in each fourth-grade classroom at Manzanita, 3000 E. Manzanita Ave.
"People say a picture is worth a thousand words. … I say the same with a puppet," said fourth-grade student Deanna Piedrahita during teacher Nina Stotlar's class with Ray.
"Kids take an abstract idea in their head and then turn it into three-dimensional reality. Now what's better than that? It's what we do every day as adults," said Ray.
"I have 30-something-year-old parents that come up to me and say that they still have their puppets and fondly remember the project," she said.
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The project, which started Feb. 19, will end March 2 with game-show puppet skits in each of the fourth-grade classrooms.
"After Gwen is gone, the students will write puppet skits, short stories, puppet biographies, and some of the students will perform their skits to kindergarten and first-grade classrooms," Stotlar said.
"They really take on a life of their own after they are created."
