DLTK's Crafts for Kids
Paper Bag Turul Craft (Hungarian mythological creature)

This Turul is a simple puppet craft that is fun for young children to make.  It makes a great project for preschool and kindergarten kids and works well with various fantasy books or a Hungarian mythology theme.

Materials:

• a paper lunch bag,
• a printer,
• some crayons,
• scissors,
• glue,
• paper for the printer

Optional:

• big wiggly eyes

What is the Turul?

In Hungarian mythology, the Turul is the divine messenger who sits atop the tree of life with the other spirits of unborn children (all in the form of birds).

According to the myth, the Turul appeared in a dream to Emese, wife of Ögyek (descended from Attila the Hun).  It symbolically impregnated her causing a stream of crystal-clear water started to flow from her.  As the water flowed west, it grew into a great river.  This dream signified that her child was going to be the father of a line of great rulers.  After this dream, she gave birth to Álmos, who went on to become the first Grand Prince of the Magyars (Hungarian tribe).

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 red paper (just glue it on and trim) or paint it red and let dry.
• 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:   (color)   or   (B&W)

Template 3:   (color)   or   (B&W)

Template 4:   (color)   or   (B&W)

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