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Crafts

Canadian Animal Paper Bag Puppets

By Michelle Runowski and Vanessa Caldwell, Kids' CBC

Nov 4, 2015

Paper bags are the perfect base for puppets — they're cheap, easy to find and just the right size for little hands. 

Download and print our six Canadian animals (a fox, a polar bear, a beaver, a moose, an owl and a puffin), glue them on to paper bags and decorate. That's it!

Once kids have assembed their own puppets, they can create and perform their own puppets shows. Great for imaginative play!

You Will Need:

  • Canadian animal puppet printables (PDF)
  • paper bags
  • pencil crayons, markers or crayons
  • scissors
  • glue stick or white glue
  • feathers, stickers, washi tape, craft foam and other embellishments (optional)

Supplies for paper bag animal puppets.

Instructions:

1. Download and print Canadian animal puppet printables (PDF).

Click images to open PDF.

Images of the moose and owl puppet PDFs as they will appear when printed.

2. Colour the animals and cut them out.

A fox, polar bear, puffin and beaver, coloured in a cut out.

3. Keep the paper bags folded. Glue the head of each animal onto the bottom flap of the paper bag, with the chin positioned just over the bottom edge. 

A paper polar bear and puffin head glued on to a paper bag

4. Glue the body of each animal on to the front of the paper bag. Position the top edge just under the animal's chin. 

5. Decorate your puppets with cottom balls, feathers, washi tape, stickers or anything else you'd like.

Finished paper bag animal puppets.

6. Now it's time to play! Slip your hand into the paper bag—curl and move your fingers to make the animals heads move.

Put on a puppet show, perform a story or just play! The best thing about these puppets is that they can be used again and again.