Gateway 'monster' project brings preschool creatures to life

Imagine as a child having your own creature – with names such as Red-Ranger, Cone-Jumper or Joker – come to life.

After reading the interactive story “Go Away Big Green Monster” last year, Tracy Ricciardi’s preschool class at Gateway High School drew pictures and created their own monsters using templates. The Caldecott Award-winning children’s book by author-illustrator Ed Emberley is aimed at helping children tackle fears and emotions through play and creativity.

Ricciardi’s students chose their own creature’s facial features and any items they had, such as a guitar, for example.

This was the second year for the project and Ricciardi was encouraged to take it to the next level. Using the children’s drawings as guides, students in Ricciardi’s clothing construction class students made monster “stuffies” for the preschoolers.

The family and consumer science teacher explained that school counselor Colleen Tortorella suggested the expansion.

“I can’t take credit, this was all her idea,” said Ricciardi, whose also has been overseeing the preschool program for 13 years.

Ricciardi wanted to get high schoolers involved and turned the project into an educational cross-curricular activity.

After the drawings were made into stuffies, Angela Raymond’s biology students used the students’ pictures to invent the monster’s adaptations.

“The high schoolers were super creative, making silly and fun adaptations,” said Ricciardi. “One monster had a blue swirly string. The string went into the ground to absorb water, since this particular monster didn’t have a mouth.”

Next, the monsters were given to Natalie Puhala’s world language students, who made up distinct dialects for each creature.

Stuffies were then passed along to Shawn Whelan’s social studies class.

“We wanted to know where the monsters came from, their back stories, planets and worlds, cultures and philosophies,” Ricciardi said.

All of this information was passed to Phil Randolph’s speech class, where students brought everything together, making each monster an original story. Students wrote a narrative and recorded themselves reading it for the preschoolers; Randolph then uploaded the stories to YouTube.

All of this was a surprise to the preschoolers, who received their stuffies at graduation.

“The parents absolutely loved it. The whole project was very well received,” Ricciardi said.

The entire project took about a month.

“The high schoolers were able to come together,” Ricciardi said. “They have some great ideas for next year.”

The Pre-K program at Gateway’s University Park Elementary also adopted the monster project this year. Those students received their stuffies at the high school’s carnival day.

“I’m happy that so many people got introduced to our preschool because of this project,” Ricciardi said. “Some students didn’t even know we had a preschool program at the high school.”

Ricciardi has been a teacher for 26 years; she began her career at Riverview in Oakmont, and spent the last 21 years at Gateway.

“Everyone here is a professional in their field, everyone works well together,” Ricciardi said of her fellow teachers. “It is so nice and absolutely amazing to have colleagues who jumped on board and were there from the beginning.”