Christmas Toilet Roll Puppets Project

Project Summary:

This Christmas toilet roll puppet project is a great activity to get children excited about the magic of Christmas. It can be a time consuming project but children can come back to the project multiple times throughout the holiday season to build up a collection of puppets.

Project Details: Christmas Toilet Roll Puppets Project

Step 1 – Prepare the materials

The first step involves gathering the materials described above. You can choose which items you need based on what type of toilet roll puppets you are going to create. For this project we chose to create the following puppets:

• Snowmen
• Penguins
• Santa Claus puppets
• Elf puppets

For younger children, it can be helpful to pre-cut some items before starting the project, such as feet and beaks for the penguins, feet for the Santa puppets and elves, and carrot noses for the snowmen. Laying smaller items out neatly alongside the glue can simplify the task for younger children.

Step 2 – Paint the toilet rolls

Children will enjoy the simple task for painting toilet rolls for their puppets in the following colours:

• The snowmen – paint the toilet rolls white
• The penguins – paint the toilet rolls black
• The Santa Claus puppets – paint the bottom ¾ of the toilet roll red, leaving the top ¼ unpainted for the face.
• The elf puppets – paint the bottom ¾ of the toilet roll green, leaving the top ¼ unpainted for the face.

Once the toilet rolls have been painted lay them out to dry.

Step 3 – Make hats for the puppets

Making hats for the puppets is really simple. For the Santa and elf hats, simply cut a piece of felt in a triangular shape. Then using your fingers to hold the material, move the material to create the shape of a cone and then secure it with glue or staples. For the snowmen and penguin hats, you will need some old socks. To create a hat, take a sock and cut across it approximately 8cm below the sock opening. Later you will place the sock opening over the toilet roll puppet and you simply tie off the top of the sock with a ribbon or piece of string.

Step 4 – Create the Santa and Elf Puppets

For the Santa puppets, carry out the following steps:

• Use glue to attach black feet
• Glue on a strip of black felt for Santa’s belt
• For the face, stick on some eyes and draw a smile with a black marker
• Glue a white strip of felt onto Santa’s hat and stick on some cotton wool as a hat bobble, then glue the hat in place.
• Finally use small pieces of cotton wool to glue on Santa’s beard.

For the Elf puppets, carry out the following steps:

• Use glue to attach black feet
• Glue on a strip of white felt for the elf’s belt
• For the face, stick on some eyes and draw a smile with a black marker
• Glue a white strip of felt onto the elf’s hat and stick on some cotton wool as a hat bobble, then glue the hat in place.
• Finally add any extra decoration to make your elves unique.

Step 5 – Create the Snowmen and Penguin Puppets

For the snowmen puppets, carry out the following steps:

• Glue some craft pom poms on the front of the snowman
• Glue on a piece of white felt for the snowman’s face
• Stick on eyes, glue on a carrot nose made out of felt or foam, and use a black marker to create a smile.
• Place a sock hat on the snowman and tie the top of the hat with a ribbon or string.
• You can cut an extra strip of material from the sock and tie it on as a scarf.

For the penguin puppets, carry out the following steps:

• Glue on penguin feet made from felt or foam.
• Create a body for the penguin by cutting out a piece of white felt and glue it on the front of the toilet roll.
• Stick on eyes, and glue on a penguin beak which has been cut out of felt or foam.
• Place a sock hat on the penguin and tie the top of the hat with a ribbon or string.
• You can cut an extra strip of material from the sock and tie it on as a scarf.

Step 6 – Create a Christmas Scene

Once the puppets have been completed, children will have lots of fun using them in play. They can group the puppets together and may choose to build a Christmas scene around them. Or they may choose to place their puppets in lots of different locations to create an exciting Christmas atmosphere.