Paper Plate Turtle Puppets

When it comes to super simple kids crafts that are fun and easy to do with preschoolers, you just can’t beat paper plate crafts.

With the warmer weather bringing all kinds of animals out, I thought we’d make a few of our favorite animals with this paper plate turtle craft.

As a bonus, you can easily turn this preschool craft into turtle puppets.

Paper Plate Turtle Craft

Materials Needed:

• Paper Plates
• Construction Paper
• Scissors
• Markers or Crayons
• Glue or Clear Tape

For each turtle you will need to cut 4 chunky legs, a lightbulb-shaped head, and a tail out of brown or green construction paper.

For toddlers you can cut these pieces out ahead of time.

For preschoolers you can draw them and then let them practice scissor skills by cutting the pieces out.

Once all the pieces are cut out, have your child flip the paper plate over and glue or tape the pieces in place.

If you want to turn the paper plate turtle into a puppet, cut a 1 inch thick strip of thin cardboard (a cereal box is perfect) to become the handle.  Fold the ends and tape it to the middle of the bottom of the paper plate.

Now comes the fun part!

Have your child decorate the turtle’s shell with crayons or markers.

You might have older kids try to decorate it in a pattern.  With younger kids you can just let them get artistic.

They can also draw eyes and a mouth on the turtle’s head.

When they are finished they will have lots of fun playing with their paper plate turtle puppets.   Mine had fun making the turtles “crawl” on the floor, wiggle and dance, and in the case of my son’s turtle craft, drive toy trucks.

You may also like these posts:

• Shape Stick Puppets 
• Hand Print Sheep
• Dog Crafts