Paper Plate Puppet with Moveable Mouth

This is what the finished puppet looks like.  His mouth will open and close.

Materials:
Very sturdy paper plate
Fun foam (any color for hair and nose)
           Note:  When I let the older children make their own, they used construction paper for the hair, etc.  Some cut pieces, come tore the paper to make hair, etc.)

Googly eyes
2 paper brads
One medium sized rubber band
Empty paper towel roll (cover it with colored construction paper, fabric, or scrapbook paper to make clothes)
Glue
String or yarn (about 18 inches long)
Scissors

Directions:

• From fun foam, cut out hair, beard, eye brows, mustache, and nose.  I free handed it because I didn't have a pattern.
• Glue the hair, eyebrows, etc. on the bottom side of the plate (the side of the plate you do NOT eat from).  When gluing on the beard, do not glue the very middle part.  Leave that unglued so you can stick the white pull string through that area.
• Glue on googly eyes.
• To make the mouth, put one brad through the plate on each side under the mustache where the corners of the mouth would be.  Tie a string to one edge of the rubber band.  Stretch the rubber band around each of the brads to look like the top photo.  The string should be facing down.
• Place the string between the open area of the beard and the plate so that the string hangs out the bottom under the beard.
• Cut two small slits at the top of the paper towel roll (long enough that the plate will slide into them and not fall off too easily).  See below:

• Slide the string through the paper towel roll so that it hangs out the bottom so that it looks like the picture below.

• When you pull the string, the mouth with open like the picture below.  When you let go, the mouth will close.

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