Paper Bag Tiger Puppet
Create these adorable paper bag tiger puppets for fun imaginary fun! When you’re done, check out these cow paper bag puppets. This post contains affiliate links.
Get your jungle gear on because today we’re going to craft a ferociously adorable tiger puppet! Using just a few materials you can find around your house and a dash of imagination, you and your little one will be ready for a wild adventure.
Puppet play is tremendously enriching for kids of all ages. By acting out scenarios with make-believe characters, kids build social and emotional skills while practicing their language development, too. Parents, teachers, or therapists can get involved to steer puppet conversations toward specific goals, or leave the play entirely open-ended to let kids explore their own thoughts.
Creating these puppets is also great for kids at various stages. Older kids can follow the steps independently from start to finish, while younger kids can gut and glue the shapes that an adult has traced and prepared for them.
Because most of the shapes are on the larger side, it should be accessible for almost anyone who can use scissors. For those who can’t use scissors yet, you can pre-cut the pieces and have them do the gluing. Just let things to when it comes to results!
You can also cut out the pieces on white paper and have little crafters color them.
It’s easy to make a whole family of tigers for friends to play with together! Try varying the end product by drawing different facial expressions on each one to encourage kids to enact a range of emotions. Or check out our other paper bag puppet posts to make some more diverse friends for your little tiger.
Grab your free template at the end of this post and get ready for a roaring good time!
What you’ll need
- Colored paper
- Paper bag (or additional paper to create a bag)
- Pencil
- Scissors
- Glue
- Markers
How to Make your Paper Bag Tiger Puppet
1. Cut out the template patterns and trace them onto colored paper. We used a variety of shades of yellow and orange for the head, ears, tummy and tail, brown for the stripe on the head, pink for the inner ears, and white for the eyes, paws, and muzzle (that’s the lower part of the face.) We cut the nose out of black paper but you can easily use a scrap from another part and color it black. Cut out all the pieces.
Use a black marker to color pupils on the eye cutouts. Leave a little white spot or make a dot with white-out or pastel to give the eyes extra dimension and expression.
2. Glue the smaller ear cutouts onto the center of the outer ear cutouts. Glue the brown stripe down the center of the head, starting at the top.
3. Glue the ears to the top of the head, attaching them in back of the head. Glue the muzzle, or lower part of the face, onto the bottom of the head cutout.
4. Glue the nose to the center of the face, overlapping the muzzle and stripe. Glue the eyes to each side of the face.
5. Use a black marker to outline the stripe patterns on the head and to create a mouth and some freckles on the muzzle.
6. Color in the stripe outlines with black marker.
7. For the tiger’s body, trace the size of your paper bag onto a piece of colored paper and cut it out.
8. Glue the belly cutout at the bottom of the body, then glue the paws on each side, overlapping the belly.
9. Use a black marker to outline and color in the stripe pattern on the body and tail.
10. Glue the tail to the side of the body, attaching it to the back.
11. Hold the paper bag, still folded flat, with the base of the bag on top. Glue the head to the base of the paper bag.
12. Glue the body of the tiger to the front of the paper bag, under the head.
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