School: Montessori Academy of Cincinnati

Student: Alice Polusmiak

Teacher: Claire Dickmann and Beth Taylor

Grade: 2nd

Subject: Upcycling

Description: One day, I danced and hurt my foot on the sharp corner of the bed. I was so scared and worried. My mom got my old socks I used when I was a baby to wrap the sharp corner. I wanted to keep one so I asked my mom. I used it to make a puppet.

First, I cut a small cardboard and folded in the middle. I put it inside the sock so my puppet can open its mouth. Then I cut a small pink paper and drew a purple line in the middle to make a tongue. I taped it in the puppet mouth.

Next I glued the googly eyes on her head. I used very big googly eyes because they looked cute. Then I started to make a bow for her. I cut it from a blue paper, but it looked bad. The 2nd bow was drawn on the paper before I cut it. I was medium bad. My third bow was very good after I drew it slowly and cut it slowly.

Last I named my puppet and her name is “Cutie Eye”. She likes to pretend she is old and young. When she is old, she is slow and quiet. When she is young, she makes a lot of exciting sounds.

I also made a show box for her. My mom helped me to cut the box. I decorated it with marker and blue paper tape. About the remote control, the on/off switch is on the top and the triangle sign on the bottom is for battery change.

I made a puppet friend for her to do a picnic. I drew spring flowers and a ladybug as the background. The friends like to have tea, mac and cheese, breadstick, cookie, and ice cream. I made the tea pot and tea cups from toilet paper rolls. I added the handles with the tape, but the tape was not recycle. The tea pot cap was difficult to find and I tried 4 caps and the 5th cap fit! Their food was cut from our empty food boxes.

I like to do puppet show for my mom and dad after dinner because I want to test to see how it works. It works great! Because of the virus, I can’t go to my friends’ house, or they can’t come to my house to play. So I called them instead from my iPad. I did the puppet show for them, and we had lots of fun. I started with a small sock, and after working for many days, I had a big show for my friends. I hope you like it!

Here is the recycled materials I used:

• A small sock
• Cardboards
• Blue packing foam
• Toilet paper rolls
• Gogo squeeze yogurt pouch
• Starbucks bottled coffee cap
• Plastic pull-ring
• Keurig tea k-cup
• Empty boxes from ice creams, Honey Maid, Nutella breadsticks, Kraft mac and cheese