Tag: Stick Puppets

leaping dolphin stick puppet craft
Animals

Leaping Dolphin Stick Puppet Craft

Jennifer
leaping dolphin stick puppet craft

Dolphins are some of the most fascinating animals in the ocean! Known for their playful personalities, intelligence, and acrobatic jumps, dolphins capture the imagination of children everywhere. A leaping dolphin stick puppet craft is a fun and simple activity that lets preschoolers explore these amazing sea creatures while developing important creative and motor skills.

Supplies Needed:

How To:

Children can start this project by painting the paper plate blue using water color paints. Let the plate dry. Add waves with a marker or crayon.

Print off the leaping dolphin stick puppet craft template (free PDF download). Color the dolphin. After coloring, cut along the dotted lines.

red line showing where to make the slit on the paper plate as part of craft instructions

Once the plate is dry, an adult can use a box cutter to cut a slit along the smooth center of the plate. The slit in the example is a little less than halfway up the plate. Before slicing, make sure that the craft stick will be able to stick up through the proposed slit and move around. The slit should go all the way along the smooth part of the plate, stopping before both ridged outer edges.

Glue (or tape) your dolphin to end of a craft stick. Slip your puppet through the slit and move your puppet around so that your dolphin can swim and leap around the ocean.

Downloadable Leaping Dolphin Stick Puppet Craft Template

As children color, cut, and assemble their stick puppets, they practice:

  • Fine motor skills
  • Hand-eye coordination
  • Creativity and self-expression
  • Following directions
  • Imaginative storytelling
Leaping Dolphin Stick Puppet CraftDownload

dinosaur stick puppet craft or 2 dinosaur puppets
Uncategorized

Create Fun Dinosaur Stick Puppets for Kids

Jennifer
dinosaur stick puppet craft or 2 dinosaur puppets

Create your own dinosaur stick puppets with this cute dinosaur template. The template (found below) is a free, downloadable PDF for your personal use. Stick puppets are a simple, affordable, and entertaining craft that encourages creativity, storytelling, and imaginative play. Whether you’re a parent, teacher, or caregiver, making stick puppets with children is a wonderful way to combine art and learning while creating hours of imaginative fun.

Why make stick puppets? Stick puppet crafts are fantastic for developing fine motor skills! Cutting, coloring, gluing, and assembling puppets strengthen hand muscles and improve coordination. Also, stick puppet play inspires children to create dialogue, tell stories, and practice communication skills. Young learners often become more comfortable expressing themselves through puppet characters. Children can use puppets to explore emotions, solve problems, and practice empathy by acting out different situations.

Craft Supplies:

*if you do not have craft sticks, feel free to use any stick like things you have at home such as straws, or grab sticks from outside.

Instructions:

FIRST: Print the free Dinosaur Stick Puppets template. Cardstock holds up the best, but regular copy works too.

SECOND: Color your two dinosaur pictures.

THIRD: Cut around the dotted circles.( Cutting in a circular shape is an important skill for children to practice.)

FOURTH: Grab your two craft sticks, and attach a stick to the back of each picture with either glue to tape.

Now it’s play time! Grab your dinosaur stick puppets and start playing with them. Give your dinosaurs a name, and create an adventure for them to go on.

Dinosaur Stick Puppets Template:

Dinosaur Stick PuppetsDownload

More Dinosaur Craft Fun!

Thank you for crafting with me!

Fall

Thanksgiving Stick Puppets

Jennifer

Create your own Thanksgiving stick puppets with this pie and turkey template. The template (found below) is a free, downloadable PDF for your personal use. Are you team pie or team turkey? I am definitely team pie! Make both and ask your family and friends to vote for their favorite Thanksgiving stick puppet. Find more fall crafts to make together: https://imaginationsrunningwild.com/fall-crafts/

Thanksgiving Stick Puppets of a slice of pie and turkey

Supplies:

  • Free template
  • 2 craft sticks  (We used the 6″x3/4″ craft sticks)
  • 1 cotton ball
  • markers or crayons
  • scissors
  • glue
  • tape (optional)

Instructions:

Print the free Thanksgiving stick puppets template. Cardstock works best, but regular copy works too. Color your pie (I chose a pumpkin pie) and your turkey. Then cut around the dotted circles. Grab your two craft sticks and with glue or tape one stick to the back of each picture.

For the “whipped cream,” I added a cotton ball to the pie. I gently pulled on the cotton ball to make it look fluffier before gluing it on. Now your pie is complete! Let it dry before playing with your stick puppets.

Template:

Thanksgiving Stick PuppetsDownload
Fall

Turkey Scene Stick Puppet Craft

Jennifer

Who doesn’t love playing with puppets? Puppet crafts are so much fun for children to make and to play with! I love when we are able to make a scene on a paper plate for stick puppet to explore. Make this cute turkey stick puppet craft with your little one and enjoy watching your puppet explore the straw and fall leaves in this scene. This interactive craft is tons of fun and lends itself well to imaginative play.

Turkey Scene Stick Puppet Craft

Supplies Needed:

How To:

Print off the turkey scene stick puppet craft template (free PDF download). Color the turkey, rolled up straw bales, haystack, and fall leaves. After coloring, cut out your pictures. I try to keep things simple by cutting a border around the pictures rather than exactly along the lines. Once you glue them onto a white paper plate, you really can’t see the white borders around the pictures anyway.

paper plate

Have an adult use a box cutter to cut a slit along the smooth center of the plate. The slit in the example is a little less than halfway up the plate. Before slicing, make sure that the craft stick will be able to stick up through the proposed slit and move around. The slit should go all the way along the smooth part of the plate, stopping before both ridged outer edges.

Now that you have colored all of your pictures, glue them onto your plate. Check to make sure that all of the pictures are glued down tight so that your turkey stick puppet doesn’t get stuck under any edges that may be sticking up.

Make a turkey scene stick puppet craft

Glue your turkey to end of a craft stick and let’s play! Slip your puppet through the slit and move your puppet around so that your turkey can play in the straw.

More Turkey Fun!

-Check out my lists of Turkey Stories and Thanksgiving Books to read with your preschooler!

–Turkey Paper Bag Puppet: turn a paper lunch bag into a puppet!

–Toilet Paper Roll Turkey: make a cute turkey out of a toilet paper roll, paper plate, and feathers.

TURKEY SCENE STICK PUPPET CRAFT TEMPLATE:

Turkey-Stick-Puppet-Craft-2Download
Fall, Halloween, Uncategorized

Halloween Stick Puppets Craft

Jennifer
Halloween Stick Puppets

I was looking at Halloween images on Canva and I came across these cute pictures of children dressed up for Halloween (and the cat too!). They were too adorable to ignore so I turned them into a Halloween stick puppets craft! Stick puppets are one of my go-to kids’ crafts. They lend themselves well to imaginative play. I love seeing children act out adventures with the there stick puppets! Are you ready to make your own stick puppets?

Supplies Needed:

How To:

This Halloween stick puppets craft is pretty quick and easy. Begin by printing the template — it is a free, downloadable PDF.

Color your six Halloween pictures. (I love the cat!)

Cut out the oval stick puppet pictures.

Then glue a craft stick to the back of your pictures. Once they are dry, let the puppet fun begin!

Free Halloween Stick Puppets Craft Template:

Halloween-Stick-PuppetsDownload

I joined Amazon’s Affiliate program to try and help cover the costs of this site. I may get a small percentage of the sale if you purchase something through the Amazon link I provided. Best part, there is no additional cost to you. Thank you for your support! Happy crafting 🙂

More Crafts:

Do you like puppets? My son and I think puppets are a lot of fun! We’ve made quite a few together. Check out some more of our puppet ideas:

Animals

Narwhal Stick Puppet Craft

Jennifer

Puppet crafts are so much fun for preschoolers to make and to play with! Here is a super cute narwhal stick puppet craft that you can make with your little one. Watch as they make their narwhal swim through the sea on the paper plate! This interactive craft is tons of fun and lends itself well to imaginative play.

Supplies Needed:

Narwhal Stick Puppet Craft

How To:

Preschoolers can start this project by painting the paper plate blue using water color paints. Let the plate dry.

Print off the narwhal craft template (free PDF download). Color the narwhal, kelp, starfish, and clam. After coloring, cut along the dotted lines.

Once the plate is dry, an adult can use a box cutter to cut a slit along the smooth center of the plate. The slit in the example is a little less than halfway up the plate. Before slicing, make sure that the craft stick will be able to stick up through the proposed slit and move around. The slit should go all the way along the smooth part of the plate, stopping before both ridged outer edges.

Now that you have colored all of your pictures, glue them onto your plate. Make a nice ocean scene for your narwhal to visit! Check to make sure that all of the pictures are glued down tight so that your narwhal stick puppet doesn’t get stuck under any edges that may be sticking up.

Glue your narwhal to end of a craft stick and let’s play! Slip your puppet through the slit and move your puppet around so that your narwhal can swim in the sea. Read some narwhal stories to go along with your craft!

Animals

Dory and Nemo Stick Puppets

Jennifer
Dory and Nemo Stick Puppets

Dory and Nemo are so cute and fun. Preschoolers and grownups both love these two fish! I created free stick puppet templates of them for children to make. I love stick puppets because they are so easy for preschoolers to make and hold, and are lend themselves well to creative play. Print off my free Dory and Nemo stick puppets  craft template and make your own stick puppets and create lots of fun adventures for Dory and Nemo.

Dory-Nemo-Stick-Puppets-1Download

Supplies Needed:

  • template
  • crayons
  • scissors
  • glue or tape
  • craft stick (I used the jumbo sized craft, but the skinnier one should work just fine)

How To:

This Dory and Nemo stick puppet craft is pretty quick and easy. Print the template — it is a free, downloadable PDF. Color your fish and then cut them out following the dotted circle outlines. Next glue or tape a craft stick to the back of each picture. Once they are dry, let the puppet play begin!

More Crafts

Do you like puppets? My son and I think puppets are a lot of fun! We’ve made quite a few together. Check out some more of our puppet ideas:

Winter

Snowman Stick Puppet Craft

Jennifer
snowman stick puppet craft

One of my favorite things about winter are snowmen! I love making real snowmen, putting up snowman decorations, reading snowman books, and making snowmen crafts 🙂 I created this simple snowman stick puppet for son and the kiddos at the library to enjoy.

Supplies Needed:

How To:

snowman stick puppet sample

Print the free Snowman Stick Puppet Template. Regular printer paper works just fine, but you can also use cardstock for a sturdier puppet.

This is a pretty quick and easy project to make. Color all of your snowman pieces. I think color pencils work best for this craft, but lots of kids used crayons and their snowman puppets turned out great! One kid added a snowflake sticker to the snowman’s body; another used glitter glue to make the scarf sparkle.

Cut out the pieces and arrange them into a snowman shape. My son needed help cutting out the scarf and the hat, but did great with the circles.

Glue your snowman pieces together so that they are all attached. Then glue a craft stick to the back of your snowman.

Ta-da, you have a cute snowman puppet! Let your puppet dry before playing with it. Fortunately glue sticks dry pretty quickly.

Looking for more things to make? Check out my Winter Crafts page for more fun ideas.

Animals

Aesop’s Fables 🐇🐢

Jennifer
Aesop’s Fables — Hare and Tortoise Stick Puppets

Read The Hare and the Tortoise with your little one and then extend the fun by acting out the story with stick puppets!

The Hare & the Tortoise

A Hare was making fun of the Tortoise one day for being so slow.

“Do you ever get anywhere?” he asked with a mocking laugh.

“Yes,” replied the Tortoise, “and I get there sooner than you think. I’ll run you a race and prove it.”

The Hare was much amused at the idea of running a race with the Tortoise, but for the fun of the thing he agreed. So the Fox, who had consented to act as judge, marked the distance and started the runners off.

The Hare was soon far out of sight, and to make the Tortoise feel very deeply how ridiculous it was for him to try a race with a Hare, he lay down beside the course to take a nap until the Tortoise should catch up.

The Tortoise meanwhile kept going slowly but steadily, and, after a time, passed the place where the Hare was sleeping. But the Hare slept on very peacefully; and when at last he did wake up, the Tortoise was near the goal. The Hare now ran his swiftest, but he could not overtake the Tortoise in time.

The race is not always to the swift.

After reading the fable together, we made stick puppets. My son colored them and then I cut them out. He attached them to craft sticks with glue dots. Then we raced!

check out our stick puppet race: https://youtu.be/t9NC7pvEQu0

Print off a copy of the pictures we used and make your own:

Aesop-stick-puppetsDownload

Check out more Aesop’s Fables online. They are available for free by the Library of Congress: http://read.gov/aesop/index.html.