Make Stick Puppets for Teaching, Playing, Learning
Stick puppets are easy to create and they provide hours of fun and creative opportunities for teaching in all curriculum areas. Gather a few of your favorite clip art images and let the fun begin.
Choose art that fits the season, a holiday or a subject your kids are studying. You can use them for tons of projects. Here are a few ideas for creating stick-puppets with clip art.
Create Stick Puppet Pages
FIRST place 6 to 9 clip art images on a page in your favorite word processing program. Leave enough space around the images so it is easy for kids to cut them out. Check to see if your word processing program allows you to make a stroke line around the images for easier cutting.
CLICK HERE to download this page for some fun right now.
Here are a few clip art sets with themes kids study in school:
Click here for a short tutorial on how to use PowerPoint to create activitieon
Color the Puppets
Print your page out for children to decorate. If possible PRINT ON CARDSTOCK. The images are much easier to cut out and much more fun to play with. I found that kids often add their own creative details (bows, freckles glasses, bandaids).
The images above are from Karen’s Kids Bunnies, Chicks, Eggs Clip Art Set.
Cut Out the Puppets
For easier cutting, encourage kids to leave a little white space around the images.
I made my own sets of teaching puppets for role play, conflict resolution and creative writing. If you are able to laminate them they will last much longer.
Glue Craft Sticks to the Back
Create a sample with a craft stick glued to the back of a cut-out image to show the kids where the stick should be glued.
Make Stick Puppet Centers
A STICK PUPPET CENTER can stay up all year. Kids are always ready to write and tell new stories. Change the story starter prompts and the page of puppets and kids are excited to start new plays, stories and puppet projects.
Helpful materials
- crayons
- scissors
- puppets
- craft sticks
- glue
- envelopes or baggies to store puppets
- seasonal story starter prompts
Pick a Puppet _ Write About It
Make a set of puppets to use for teaching writing
- descriptive
- narrative
- opinion
- informative
Here are some ideas that worked for me:
- Choose 3 puppets and use them to write a story.
- Choose a puppet and describe it.
- Choose a puppet and list 5 things that he/she/it likes to do.
- Choose 2 puppets and list the things that are the same and different about them.
Make Task-Card Teaching Stick Puppets
Find some clipart with blank signs or large spaces. Use them to create fun task cards. Here are a few ideas for clip art stick puppet task cards.
- Enlarge the clip art. Arrange it on your page and type math problems in blank spaces. Number the cards so kids can record the cards that they completed.
- Children make their own set of stick puppet number cards. A student or teacher gives a math problem and students hold up the answer.
- Find clip art with blank signs. Write a word within the sign (spelling words, student names, holiday words,etc.). Hold up the word that is a color name. Hold up a word that has 2 syllables. Hold up a word with more than 2 letters but less than 5 letters.
It is always helpful to laminate the teaching cards
The clip art above is from Karen’s Kids Calendar Numbers
Make Stick Puppets That Celebrate Holidays
Seasonal and Holiday clipart here.
Make stick puppets a part of your holiday celebrations. There are tons of clip art for every holiday.
Thank you for visiting. Have fun with your stick puppet projects. Remember that you can download a free clip art image every month. CLICK HERE to download your free clipart.
