With the help of Port Townsend artist Thaddeus Jurczynski and the Artist in Residence program, Loyal Heights Elementary School students will soon be in control of an army of hellhounds, serpents, squirrels, ice giants and other figures from Norse mythology.

For this year's program, third, fourth and fifth-grade classes are working with Jurczynski to create giant puppets to be part of the annual Syttende Mai parade May 17 in Ballard. First and second-graders are creating troll masks for the parade.

To create the puppets, many of which are large enough to fit at least one student inside them, reeds and bamboo are formed into a skeleton and covered with paper mache.

After research at the Nordic Heritage Museum, students drew two-dimensional representations of their creatures and used math and science to turn them into three-dimensional models, said Lauren Molloy-Johnson, co-chair of the Artist in Residence program.

Debi Mandell, a fifth-grade teacher at Loyal Heights, said the puppet project is a way for students to put the geometry skills they are learning to use, and because it is a hands-on activity, the students remain more focused than usual.

"No one has been bored at all," Mandell said as her students continued bending reeds into elaborate skeletons.

She said she is impressed that after only six classes, her students have already created the large skeletons for the puppets.

"It's amazing how the kids already have this vision on how to create a body," she said. "They have it in their heads and can make it."

Jurczynski said the project is a mix of art, engineering, group decision making and problem solving.

Molloy-Johnson said an important aspect of the project is for students to learn to work together and compromise. Getting 10-year-olds to agree on what a Norse creature looks like can be a challenge, she said.

After working with her group to remove a large ogre mask from a clay mold, fifth-grader Isabel Zakos said team work is what makes the project fun.

"I like that we are all working together," said Anna Volk, another fifth-grader. "It's fun."

The Loyal Heights Parent Teacher Association has been funding the Artist in Residence program for more than seven years.

Molloy-Johnson said the program allows them to bring in the things that are considered nonessential by the school district but are still important to a well-rounded education.

"It allows us to offer the extras that the school district can't pay for anymore," she said.

In past years, the Artist in Residence program has focused on poetry, jazz, opera and more.

Loyal Heights Principal Wayne Floyd said that along with a rigorous academic program, schools need to have deep enrichment for the students.

A program like Artist in Residence allows students to use everything they have learned academically and prepares them for life, he said.

"There's no value you can put on it," he said. "It's invaluable."