Stick puppets are easy to make and they provide hours of fun. Kids can make their own puppets with their own art or you can make, and print out pages of clipart images with a theme (Mother's/Father's Day, Valentine's Day, holidays, birthdays, special events). This is a fun birthday party activity too. Gather your materials:
- clipart images
- scissors
- craft sticks
- glue
Here are a few ideas for creating stick-puppets with clip art.
Create a Page of Clipart Cut-outs
Bunny Kids clipart here Community Helpers clipart here Patriotic clipart here Frog clipart here
Place 6 to 9 clip art images in your favorite word processing program. Leave enough space around the images so it is easy for kids to cut them out. Check to see if your word processing program allows you to make a stroke line around the images for easier cutting.
CLICK HERE to download the page above for some fun right now.
Here are a few clip art sets with themes you might use in lessons:
- community helpers (Kids can make a community helper and tell/write about it.)
- spring/winter/fall/summer sets (Print out seasonal images, kids make their puppets and tell a seasonal story.)
- kids sets (Children choose a character and write a description about him/her/it.)
- holidays and celebrations (Make historical figure puppets, holiday puppets and seasonal puppets to help learn about the famous person or the season.)
- health (Wash your hands, cover your cough, use a tissue...stick puppets are great for teaching health.
- seasonal and weather (Print weather and seasonal images for weather reporting projects and for teaching seasonal concepts.)
(Click here for a short tutorial on how to use PowerPoint to create activities.)
Color and Cutout the Images
If possible PRINT ON CARDSTOCK. The images are much easier to cut out and much more fun to play with. Encourage kids to add their own creative details (bows, freckles glasses, bandaids).
Some of the images may have details that are hard to cut out for younger kids. For easier cutting, leave a little white space around the images.
I made my own sets of teaching puppets for role play, conflict resolution and creative writing. Kids could also check the sets out for their own special projects. I laminated my teaching sets.
Glue Craft Sticks to the Back
Create a sample with a craft stick glued to the back of a cut-out image to show the kids where the stick should be glued.
Whether you are teaching a lesson, introducing a story, or prompting kids to write a story, stick puppets add hands-on fun to the activity.
See a HOW TO MAKE A STICK PUPPET center and more stick puppet ideas here.
Have fun with your stick puppet projects. Remember that you can download a new free monthly clip art image every month. CLICK HERE to download the FREE CLIP ART OF THE MONTH.