Friendly Monster Puppets

This friendly monster puppet craft is simple, but my preschool students loved, loved, loved making them.  They are a great craft for a rainy day, for Halloween, or for adding to any puppet collection.

Moster Puppet Craft Materials:

• paper lunch bags
• googly eyes
• crayons
• markers
• dot markers
• liquid glue
• an assortment of yarn or string

To make these cuties, I invited my preschoolers to color their monster bodies as they wished.  I did encourage them to use a range of materials, as I had offered crayons, markers, and dot markers on the table for their use.  Because markers are just so much more fun to use, most students opted to use only a little crayon, and lots and lots of markers to make their friendly monster puppet colorful.  I also encouraged students to fill their entire monster with color, not just a little, but a lot of color.

Once students had colored their monster to their satisfaction, (yes, I encouraged them to fill the whole paper bag, but ultimately how much a child wants to color is their own choice), they added dots for noses or colored in a mouth.  Some students added beards, mustaches, and whiskers, too.

The next step was to add hair to their monsters.  Using clear drying liquid glue, students added pieces of yarn, string and embroidery floss to give their monster hair.  Some students were particular to lay down strips of hair, while others wanted big bunchy hair.  It was enjoyable to sit back and watch their preferences.

Finally, the students added googly eyes.  I gave them a limit of five googly eyes each, but they could choose to use less.  I directed the students that only a little tiny dots of glue was needed to secure the googly eyes, and luckily the glue dries clear because some students had less control than others.

After the glue on the puppets had dried, I invited each student to name their monster puppet and share it with the class.  We followed with some basic pretend play using our puppets.  It was so funny to hear all the silly noises that monsters make when a preschooler is the puppet master!

Enjoy!