DLTK's Crafts for Kids
Paper Bag Bird Puppet

Contributed by Leanne Guenther

This is a fun and easy cut and paste paper craft that uses a paper bag as a base to make a puppet.

Materials:

• a paper lunch bag (brown or white will work) 
• green paint or green paper,
• a printer,
• some crayons,
• scissors,
• glue,
• paper for the printer

Optional:

• big wiggly eyes

Print the Template:

• Print out the template of choice (color or b&w),
• Color (as required) and cut out the template pieces.

Get Familiar with Your Paper Bag:

• I'm going to walk through this slowly.  Look at your paper bag.
• It should be closed and flat like a piece of paper.  Just like when they are brand new.
• On one side, it's all smooth.  This will be the BACK of your puppet
  • It's important that all the kids get the back and front straight at the beginning!
• On the other side there's a flippy tab (which is typically the bottom of the bag when you're carrying your lunch around...)
  • This flippy tab will be the HEAD.
• Lift the flippy tab up a bit.  Underneath of the tab will be the mouth,
  • When the child puts her hand in the bag, she'll be able to make the puppet talk.
• Look at the rest of the front of the bag.  (The 3/4 or so of the bag below the part with the flippy tab)  This will be the BODY.
• Look at the sides of the bag.  There should be a FLAP of paper. 
  • We'll be slipping the wings into this flap.
  • If the kids goof and glue the wings onto the front or back of the bag, it isn't a big deal.
• OK, now that we're comfy with our bags, let's craft!

Assemble your puppet:

• Cover the FLAP and the BODY of the paper bag with green paper (just glue it on and trim) or paint it green and let dry.
• Glue the chest from Template 1 onto the BODY 
• Glue the feather tuft to the top of the HEAD
• Glue the eyes onto the HEAD just under the feathers.  If you like, you can use wiggly eyes instead of the paper template pieces.
• Glue the beak under the eyes.  It will likely hang down over a little bit of the BODY.  Make sure you just put glue on top of the beak (where it touches the HEAD) so you don't end up gluing the mouth shut.
• Glue the wings into the FLAP.
• Glue the feet onto the bottom of the BODY
• Glue the tail onto the BACK.

 

Templates:

• Close the template window after printing to return to this screen.
• Set page margins to zero if you have trouble fitting the template on one page (FILE, PAGE SETUP or FILE, PRINTER SETUP in most browsers).

Template 1:   (color)   or   (B&W)

Template 2 (print 3 copies):    (color)   or   (B&W)