How to Make Puppet Making a Snap

Sock puppets can be made to correspond to picture book stories for extra enjoyment.

Puppets can be made from all sorts of materials. The easiest are stick puppets, next are one-hand puppets and the hardest to construct and use are marionettes. Common household items or basic craft supplies can be turned into puppets that are easy for little hands to make. Kids can use puppets in their own imaginary games or in a planned production. Puppets, or any craft for young children, are made easier by pre-cutting or at least pre-drawing some of the parts.

Things You'll Need

• Construction paper
• Felt
• Scissors
• Popsicle or craft sticks
• Styrofoam balls
• Feather or fuzzy dusters
• Pipe cleaners
• Yarn
• Crayons
• Pencils
• Markers
• Glue
• Paper bags
• Socks
• Brads
• String
• Hole punch

Instructions

1. Pre-cut eyes, noses and mouths from construction paper or felt. Make at least four times as many as needed for the number of people who are expected to participate in the puppet construction. Cut some 4-inch lengths of yarn. Lay out on a table Popsicle sticks, styrofoam balls, feather dusters, fuzzy dusters, paper bags and socks. Add extra construction paper, crayons, markers, pencils and glue.

2. Demonstrate how to make a stick puppet. Force a styrofoam ball onto a popsicle stick. Glue construction paper or felt features to one side of the ball to represent the face. Tie a piece of yarn around a bundle of four or five yarn strands. Glue the bundle to the top of the ball for hair. Use tacky or white glue; super glue or hot glue will melt the styrofoam. Hold the puppet by the stick, bounce it up and down and say something silly for it.

3. Place a paper bag over one hand without fully unfolding it. Put your fingers into the fold, and move it up and down against the main body of the bag and your palm as if it were a mouth opening and closing. Show everyone what you are doing. Remove the bag from your hand. Glue eyes and nose to the bottom of the bag. Glue a tongue and lower lip under the flap, and an upper lip to the lower edge of the bottom of the bag. Demonstrate again using it as a puppet.

4. Slide your hand inside a sock. Poke the end of the sock into the hollow between your extended fingers and thumb. Spread your fingers wide to make the puppet smile, move thumb and fingers together and away from each other to close and open the "mouth". Glue construction paper or felt facial features to the sock. Add some yarn hair.

5. Draw a face, a body, two arms and two legs on construction paper. Cut them out. Fasten the head, the arms, and the legs to the body using small brads. Cut three 18-inch pieces of string or yarn. Use a hole punch to make a hole in the top of the head, one in each hand.

6. Tie one piece of yarn from the head to the center of a popsicle stick. Tie the other two pieces of yarn to each hand and to the ends of a second popsicle stick. Hold the head stick in one hand, and the cross stick for the hands in the other. Tip the cross stick from side to side to make the hands move.

Tips & Warnings

• Almost anything can be made into a puppet. Just add eyes, nose, a mouth and lend it a voice.

• Avoid using buttons or goggle eyes with children under age three.

References

• Danielle's Place; Puppet Crafts for Kids; 2010
• Scruffy Plume Press; It's Fun and Easy to Make Puppets; 2011
• Enchanted Learning; Puppets and Marionettes;