Easy puppet craft to encourage children to talk about their feelings.

(High-res file below) 

Easy step by step for puppet making craft at home or in the classroom, perfect for KS1. Using puppets is a great way to help children talk about their feelings and ideal craft activity for Mental Health Awareness Week. 

Puppets are good for helping children talk about their feelings because the attention is shifted away from them. I have found this works particularly well with shy children who speak English as their second language. 

These puppets also don't need to be human, monster puppets, dinosaur puppets robo-puppets are all wonderful! Supply as many colours as you can find and let them get creative! 

What you need to make a puppet:

• Plasticine
• String
• Tape
• 2 Lolly sticks

If you don't have lolly sticks to hand, either treat yourself to an ice cream, or use any sticks you can find. I found lolly sticks work best because they have a flat area which makes it easier to tape together.

Step by step guide: Puppet making 

1.Criss cross the lolly sticks

2.Tape the together.

3. Attach 15cm of string from the middle.

4. Make a plasticine ball and push it onto the string for a head. Do the same for the body.

5. Push string into the body for the arms and legs. Smooth over and reshape afterwards.

6. Squash little balls on the hands and feet. These will act as weights.

7.  Add string from the hands to the top of the cross bar. secure with tape. (You can stop here and the puppet will work great, or continue for more of a challenge!)

8. Add little sausages for the arms, leave space for the elbow and knees for flexibility

9. Shape the body and face and add details!  

I've made a high-res version of this Step-by-step guide into a free downloadable PDF which is available below.

Click here to download free 'How to make a plasticine puppet guide'

I'm in the process of making lots more free content and how-to-guides so if you found this useful, sign up below and I will notify you when I upload the next one. 

Lizzie Simpson

Author/illustrator of Gloomy Baboony