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Paper Bag Puppets
Lesson #1440

Concept:

Students decorate and create original paper bag animal puppets.

Objective:

Create paper bag animal puppets to reenact a favorite story or celebrate a science lesson.

Recommended Grade Levels: 1-2, Pre-K-K

Curriculums: English Language Arts, Fine Arts & Crafts, Science

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English Language Arts: Communication Skills

K-12: Standard 5

  • Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.

Standards for the English Language Arts, by the International Reading Association and the National Council of Teachers of English, Copyright 1996 by the International Reading Association and the National Council of Teachers of English. Reprinted with Permission.

Source: NCTE/IRA Standards for the English Language Arts

Science: Life Science

  • As a result of the activities in grades K-4, all students should develop an understanding of the characteristics of organisms.

Source: National Science Education Standards

Fine Arts: Theater

K-4 Standard 2: Acting by assuming roles and interacting in improvisations

  • Students imagine and clearly describe characters, their relationships and their environments.
  • Students use variations of locomotor and nonlocomotor movement and vocal pitch, tempo and tone for different characters.

Source: National Standards for Arts Education

Bring your language arts or science lesson to life with colorful paper bag puppets featuring farm and zoo animals. Follow story time with puppet making and encourage students to act out highlights or alternative endings. Celebrate a science unit on the animal kingdom by using puppets to compare and contrast animal characteristics. Students can also practice animal sounds and movement using their animal puppets for more learning fun.

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Figure A
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Figure B

Supplies Used: Cardstock, Glue, Paper (Animal Print), Paper Bags, Scissors

The teacher will die-cut the materials for student use prior to the lesson.

  1. Die-cut any of the Paper Bag Puppets from multiple colors of cardstock or construction paper. Animal print paper may also be used.
  2. Decorate and layer die-cuts. To layer, leave one shape whole and cut highlights from other colors.
  3. Adhere decorated face to flat bottom of brown paper lunch sack (Figure A).
  4. Adhere mouth and tongue to inside flap of flat bottom, making a mouth that opens and closes with the student's hand (Figure B).
  5. Students may hold the outside of the paper bag to their forearm to keep the bag on their hand.
  6. Puppets may be used for oral reports, storytelling or plays.