How to Make a Paper Turkey Popsicle Stick Puppet

Turkey Popsicle stick puppets make a great Thanksgiving craft for kids. They can be used for a fun Thanksgiving table party favor or as a name place card for the individual table settings. Children will enjoy creating them and playing with them after they are finished. To round out the activity, have them create a puppet show using their turkey puppets and put on a Thanksgiving Day show. These are suitable for very young children to make with some supervision.

Things You'll Need

• Red construction paper
• Brown construction paper
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Fine-tipped black marker
• White craft or school glue
• Feathers (optional)
• Sequins (optional)
• Clean Popsicle stick or craft sticks

Instructions

1. Wash the Popsicle sticks if they are recycled.

2. Trace your hand on the brown construction paper.

3. Cut out the paper hand print with the scissors.

4. Draw a face on the top half of the thumb with the thin black marker.

5. Cut a small heart shape out of the red construction paper. This is the turkey's waddle.

6. Glue the waddle below the face on the thumb using a small amount of glue. Put the curves of the heart shape on the bottom.

7. Glue feathers on each of the four remaining fingers. They do not have to have feathers but it adds some character to the turkey puppets.

8. Stick a glued Popsicle stick to the back of the turkey and let it dry thoroughly.

Tips & Warnings

• To make a glittery turkey, glue on sequins. Make sure to let them dry before you use the puppet.

• If you do not have used Popsicle sticks to recycle you can get a package of new unused craft sticks at your local craft store.

• For different sized turkeys use child and adult hands to trace the different turkey bodies.

• To use as name place cards on the Thanksgiving table, make enough so there is one for each person. Write each person's name on a separate turkey. Set one in the middle of each place setting.

Resources

• Popsicle/craft sticks
• Feathers