DLTK's Crafts for Kids
Paper Bag Dove Craft

contributed by Leanne Guenther

The dove is a great symbol for many bible stories and for a peace theme.

You can turn the dove craft into nearly any bird simply by coloring in the template.  Try making a bluebird or a robin!

Materials:

• a paper lunch bag (white would be good for this project, but brown is ok too)
• white paint or white paper  (or color of your choice if you're making a different colored bird).
• a printer,
• some crayons,
• scissors,
• glue,
• paper for the printer

Optional:

• big wiggly eyes

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 paper bag with white paper (just glue it on and trim) or paint the paper bag white 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)

Print friendly version of these instructions