One of my kids’ favorite toys to chose for imaginary play are their puppets. We have a few stuffed animal puppets and a few wooden puppets that they play with on a regular basis. My son makes his sister take whichever puppet he isn’t interested in and has her play whatever part he doesn’t want. And she plays her part with no complaining because she loves to play with her brother.
So when I asked my son if he wanted to make his own puppet and he turned me down, my daughter quickly jumped in and started to make her own. She helped cut out the stripes, glued down all of the parts, and even added a few stripes of her own with her favorite black marker.
Paper Bag Animal Puppet
What You’ll Need:
- paper bag
- construction paper
- glue
- scissors
- plastic eyes
- black washable marker
- pipe cleaners (optional)
What you do:
1. Cut out the shapes for your animal. We made a tiger/cat so we cut out stripes and three triangles for the ears and nose.
2. Glue on stripes
3. Place dots for eyes and place eyes on top portion of paper bag.
4. Add ears, nose, and whiskers. Use pipe cleaners for whiskers if you prefer a more three dimensional puppet.
5. Let your child put their finishing touches on the puppet (in our case, more stripes) and start playing!
There are many different types of puppets you can make and many other tools you can use to enhance your puppets. We love to use yarn for hair (or manes), glitter for sparkle, and buttons for eyes and noses when we don’t have googly eyes.
Characters in books are the favorites for puppet ideas. We’ve done full productions of Goldilocks and the Three Bears in the front yard as well as our own version of a few Mother Goose tales. The ideas are endless! Just grab your favorite book or create your favorite animal and get crafting.
Every week Danielle brings great kids crafts to Formula Mom!
Danielle is a work-at-home-mom of two beautiful kids and writes at the Simmworks Family Blog. She loves to blog about her family, healthy living, going green and crafting. Danielle would love for you to come visit! You can reach her on facebook and twitter as well. If you have any questions feel free to email her at simmworksfamily@gmail.com.
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