DLTK's Holiday Crafts for Kids
Paper Bag Turkey Puppet

This is a fun and easy cut and paste paper craft that uses a paper bag as a base to make a turkey puppet.

To keep the puppet from being too floppy, you can't make your tail feathers too big, but you can put them either toward the top (behind the head) or toward the bottom of the body depending on which you think looks better!

Materials:

a brown paper lunch bag,
a printer
some crayons,
scissors
glue
paper for the printer

Optional:

construction paper for the tail feathers
big wiggly eyes

Print the Template:

Print out the turkey template of choice (color or b&w). I actually like to just print out the first template and skip the tail feathers template. Then the kids can cut their own "leaf shapes/football shapes" from construction paper to make their own tail feathers (I find the kids enjoy this better than using the template tail feathers)
Colour (as required) and cut out the template pieces.

Get Familiar with Your Paper Bag:

I'm going to walk through this slowly. Look at your paper bag.
It should be closed and flat like a piece of paper. Just like when they are brand new.
On one side, it's all smooth. This will be the BACK of your puppet.
- It's important that all the kids get the back and front straight at the beginning!
On the other side there's a flippy tab (which is typically the bottom of the bag when you're carrying your lunch around...)
- This flippy tab will be the HEAD.
Lift the flippy tab up a bit. Underneath of the tab will be the mouth,
- When the child puts her hand in the bag, she'll be able to make the puppet talk.
Look at the rest of the front of the bag. (The 3/4 or so of the bag below the part with the flippy tab) This will be the BODY.
Look at the sides of the bag. There should be a FLAP of paper.
- We'll be slipping the wings into this flap.
- If the kids goof and glue the wings onto the front or back of the bag, it isn't a big deal.
OK, now that we're comfy with our bags, let's craft!

Assembling Your Puppet:

Glue the beak onto the HEAD with the red wattle just underneath.
Glue the eyes onto the HEAD above the beak. If you like, you can use wiggly eyes instead of the paper template pieces.
Glue the wings into the FLAP.
Glue the egg shaped belly onto the BODY.
Glue the feet onto the very bottom of the BODY
Using template 2 or cutting your own leaf/football shapes from construction paper, glue the tail feathers onto the BACK of the paper bag so the tips are sticking out from behind the body or from behind the head, whichever you think looks nicer!

Printable Craft Templates:

After printing, close the template window to return to the main page.
If the template doesn’t fit on one page, adjust your printer margins:
• In most browsers: Print → More settings → Margins → Minimum
• Or use Page Setup / Printer Setup in your printer dialog