DLTK's Crafts for Kids
Paper Bag Bird Puppet

contributed by Leanne Guenther

This is a fun and easy cut and paste paper craft that uses a paper bag as a base to make a bird puppet.

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!

Cover the FLAP and the BODY of the paper bag with green paper (just glue it on and trim) or paint it green and let dry.
Glue the chest from Template 1 onto the BODY
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.

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).