Paper bag puppets

Following on from our pet theme of late, this week we decided to make some dog paper bag puppets. They were really easy to do! All we needed to make them was a paper bag, some newspaper, a stick, pipe cleaners, a bit of black and red paper, some fur, googly eyes, elastic band and a black pen. I did this with both the students I teach at school and my own kids.

It was a great choice making activity for the students at school. They got to choose what colour fur they wanted for the ears, the colour of the eyes (I got different coloured googly eyes) and whether they wanted to fill the paper bag with cellophane or newspaper. The scrunching of the cellophane/newspaper was a great sensory activity for the students and they got to co-actively assist with glueing the things on the puppet (using a glue stick with a holder).

The kids and I had lots of fun making them together too. We filled the bags with scrunched up newspaper, put the stick in and then secured them with an elastic band. Then we got to cut out and stick on all the different bits; ears, eyes, nose, whiskers and tongue. I took a bit of artistic license and drew the mouth myself ;)

Esme fills the bag with scrunched up newspaper - we went through a couple of bags before she learnt to be gentle putting the paper in!

Jacob tries on some whiskers of his own!

Glueing the nose on the face.

Esme's completed puppet...

And Jacob's too. They were both so pleased with their efforts!

Visit We play at Childhood 101 for more great play ideas!