Hand Puppets for Children: Three Easy Puppet Projects |

Hand Puppets for Children: Three Easy Puppet Projects

| By Roy Rasmussen | Category: Games

Hand puppets for children are a great way to have family fun without spending a lot of money. They also help open up your child’s imagination and make education more entertaining. And it’s surprisingly easy to make hand puppets for children with everyday materials. Here are three very simple puppet projects that you and your kids can make using just your hand and fingers, plus some easily obtained materials like washable markers, gloves, and rubber bands.

Winking Hand

This is one of the easiest hand puppet projects of all because all you need is a hand and some washable markers or paint. You will be decorating your hand to look like a winking face.

Find the top crease of your hand that runs horizontally across your hand just below the fingers. It lies about where your pinky touches your palm when you curl your fingers into a fist. Use this line to center the position your puppet’s eyes. Draw or paint the eyes there.
Mark a nose in the center of your palm.
Add a mouth on the lower part of your palm.
Close your pinky slightly to make your puppet wink.

SAFETY AND CLEAN-UP NOTE: Be sure to use non-toxic, washable markers or paint if you decorate your child’s hand directly. Crayola Washables are good for this. Sharpies are not recommended. Also be sure your children are old enough to understand the difference between toxic and non-toxic materials, as well as the difference between permanent and washable colors. If you are at all unsure about this, you can have them decorate a sock instead of their hand and place this over their hand.

Finger Puppets

In this project, you’re going to make tiny puppets to put on the tips of your fingers. By cutting up and decorating an old glove, you can make your fingertips look like your puppet’s body and face.

Take an old glove or another suitable glove and cut off the fingers near the base.
Use glue, tape, or stitching to reinforce the base of the fingers and prevent it from unraveling.
Decorate the glove tips, using materials such as yarn, felt, and markers to create hair, eyes, nose, and mouth.
Place the puppets on your fingertips and wiggle your fingers to animate them.

As an alternative to using a glove, you can draw or paint puppets directly on your fingers in washable colors. You can also draw them on paper or felt and attach them to your fingers with rubber bands, tape, or string. Or you can experiment with modeling clay, such as Crayola Model Magic.

Walking Fingers

In this puppet project, your fingers form the puppet’s legs and your hand forms the puppet’s head and body. Your puppet can then walk on your fingers.

Create your puppet’s face and body by drawing or painting it on the back of your hand in washable colors, with the top of the head just below your wrist and the arms formed by your thumb and pinky.
Extend your index and middle finger to form your puppet’s legs.
Walk your fingers around to make your puppet walk, run, leap, or dance.

Alternately, instead of drawing or painting directly on your hand, you can draw your puppet on paper or make it out of felt. Then attach your puppet to your hand using a rubber band or string.

For a more realistic look, you can also take a complete puppet the size of your hand with legs the size of your index and middle fingers, place your fingers behind the puppets legs, and tie the puppet to your hand.

Each of these three basic puppet-making methods can be varied with many decorations and variations for hours of entertainment. Let your children’s imaginations take these ideas and run with them!