How to Make Easy Hand Puppets for Kids

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Attach puppet’s head and clothing

   To create the base of your puppet, carefully push a foam ball onto the skewer to form a head.
   Cover your foam head with a piece of skin-toned fabric and secure with an elastic band.
   
   Then cut a piece of fabric into a square and cut two slits in the middle to create a small hole. Slide the fabric over your puppet head (like a poncho!) and attach securely with another elastic band.
   
   
   
   Younger children will need help with these steps.
   
   

2. Add decorations

   Start by disguising the elastic band by adding a scarf/tie/bow tie/feather boa to the puppet.
   
   Add yarn or ribbon for hair, buttons or googly eyes for eyes, a bead for the nose and cut out some felt for the mouth.
   
   We used a hot glue gun to attach all of these (except the felt). Clear craft glue, wood glue, or school glue would also work.
   
   Add further decorations such as sequins, feathers and cut felt shapes. Kids could even try to make cardboard hats or wings – anything is possible!
   
   
   

3. Create and attach puppet hands

   To make the hands, draw and cut four simplified hand shapes out of cardboard and glue them together to make 2 thick hands. Add a wooden skewer to one of the hands before gluing to be able to manipulate it.
   
   Then glue the hands to the corners of the puppet poncho. This allows kids to hold up their puppets by the dowel with one hand and move around one of the puppet’s hands whilst the other hand hangs free.
   
   

4. Play with your puppet!

   Now for the fun part! Why not set up a corner of the room as a puppet theatre? A couple of chairs with a blanket thrown over will do, or even a coffee table on its side.