Doctor Paper Bag Puppet
Have fun creating and playing with these super cute DIY doctor paper bag puppets! When you’re done, check out our other paper bag puppet ideas. This post contains affiliate links.
It’s been a while since we shared a paper bag puppet, and I have the perfect one to add to your collection (or start one, if this is your first!)
My kids tend to get very anxious when they see the doctor. By kids, I mean even babies, but especially when they’re toddlers, they sometimes have meltdowns before the doctor even appears! This paper bag doctor puppet allows children to act out or respond to realistic scenarios from their lives. If they have any anxiety or worries about going to the doctor, a friendly puppet toy is sure to help their fears disappear!
While some of our favorite puppets and puppet plays are fanciful and imaginary, there’s a lot of benefit in using real life characters and scenarios as well. The role play can help prepare children for what to expect and how to act in real situations, and it can help them process events that have already happened by re-enacting them.
In play, the children are in charge, so they can feel safe and confident to express all their thoughts and feelings about their doctor visit experiences, both past and future. It’s also fun for kids to try out adult roles – perhaps they will be inspired for their future career!
This craft is perfect for preschool and gradeschool age crafters. They’ll be using their fine motor skills and eye-hand coordination to trace, cut, and glue the parts together. Following the directions in order is also an important skill to practice at this age.
Younger or less skilled crafters may need help cutting out the doctor’s stethoscope, since the pieces are smaller and more intricate than the other parts of this project. They’ll also need help tracing. You may also need to show your crafters how to bend the paper in half to cut a slit for step 2.
Another way to simplify the craft is to print the template onto white cardstock and have the children color the pieces with crayons or markers, instead of tracing them onto colored paper. Tracing is a great skill to practice, but we understand that young crafters still want to enjoy puppet-making even if they’re not quite up to tracing yet!
Find your comfort zone, follow your child’s lead, and have fun together making and using this friendly doctor paper bag puppet! Then, head to our archives to choose more puppet friends to join the fun!
What you’ll need
- Colored paper (you can get Colors of the World as well for more skin tone variety)
- Pencil
- Glue
- Markers
- Scissors
- Paper bag
- Doctor puppet template – download and print at the end of this post
How to assemble a doctor paper bag puppet
1. Cut out all the pieces of the template. Trace them onto the colored papers of your choice, and cut them out (if you print the template on white cardstock, you can skip this step for pieces you’re leaving white).
Use markers to draw the irises and pupils in the eye cutouts.
2. Cut a slit along the line inside the hair piece. Slide the top of the head through the slit so that the top of the hair covers the top of the head.
3. Use glue to stick the head to the hair. Glue the eyes onto the head, and use markers to draw a nose and mouth.
4. Glue the shoes to the bottom of the pants/skirt, and the hands to the bottoms of the sleeves. Glue the round accent onto the round end of the stethoscope, and the shirt (the little triangle) to the center of the collar cutout.
5. Glue the pants/skirt to the bottom of the lab coat (the big rectangle).
6. Glue the collar with the shirt at the top of the coat rectangle. You can leave a little extra room at the top (gluing the collar a little lower than the top) because the head will overlap this when the puppet is done.
7. Glue one part of the stethoscope to each shoulder of the coat.
8. Use markers to outline the collar and add buttons to the coat.
9. Take your paper bag and position it so the open end is facing down/toward you, and the base of the bag is at the top. The bottom of the bag will be the top of the puppet.
10. Flatten the bag so that the bottom is facing toward you. Glue the head to the flattened bottom of the paper bag.
11. Glue the body (coat) onto the side of the paper bag below the head (the head should overlap the body a little).
12. Glue the arms to each side of the puppet.
Download the Doctor Paper Bag Template
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