Halloween Stick Puppets Craft or Bookmarks with Free Printable Patterns

Halloween Stick Puppets Craft or Bookmarks with Free Printable Patterns Post Preview: Here are directions and four free printable patterns for Halloween stick puppets or bookmarks – a cat, a bat, a pumpkin, and a ghost. You and your kids can use these for finger plays, songs, storytelling, bookmarks, and more.

There are so many fun storytelling opportunities, play, song, and fingerplays having to do with Halloween and Halloween themes, like pumpkins. If you don’t know of any good ones, I’ll share some resources for that a little farther down.

While it’s fun to just sing songs and do fingerplays, it can add a great new aspect to these activities if you have some props, like stick puppets. You could also make your own stick puppet theater!

To help you with that, I have this super cute set of Halloween stick puppets or Halloween bookmarks. You can use them for either purpose! To make these Halloween stick puppets (or bookmarks), I have step-by-step directions. Plus, I have a free downloadable set of four Halloween-themed patterns – a cat, a bat, a pumpkin, and a ghost.

Note: If you need some Halloween bookmarks but prefer a more traditional bookmark, you can go grab this set of free printable color your own Halloween bookmarks.

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Halloween fingerplays, songs, and Poems for Kids

The pattern set includes a pumpkin stick puppet. So this Pumpkin Fingerplays resource from the Mansfield/Richland County Public Library in Ohio is a perfect source for ideas!

ChildFun has an excellent list of Halloween songs, poems, and fingerplays for kids.

Here is a video of the classic “Five Little Pumpkins Sitting on a Gate” rhyme. I remember doing this one when I was in school! This would be really fun with pumpkin stick puppets!

Halloween Stick Puppets or Bookmarks Craft with Free Printable Patterns

Your kids or students may be able to make these stick puppets/bookmarks independently or they may need assistance with portions of the craft. If your kids or students are younger, you may need to do some or all of the cutting. Then they can assemble the Halloween stick puppets.

Of course, if they aren’t able to do any of the work on the stick puppets, you can use the patterns to make them and they can use them for storytelling and props.

Supplies Needed for the Halloween Stick Puppets or Bookmarks Craft

• Colored cardstock (here’s a great assortment pack with 18 different colors)
• Pencil for tracing
• Scissors
• Craft glue
• Craft sticks (Popsicle sticks)
• Black sharpie
• White gel pen or white paint (for a dot in the eyes or you can just leave one spot open in each eye)
• Printable patterns (available for free farther down in the post)

Instructions for Halloween Stick Puppets

Step One:

Select colored cardstock for each Halloween stick puppet or bookmark you plan to make. You will need white for the ghost, orange and green (or brown) for the pumpkin, and black or grey for the bat and the cat.

Step Two:

Print out the free printable Halloween stick puppet (or bookmark) templates available toward the end of this post.

I recommend printing them on white cardstock, if possible. That will make them easier to trace onto your colored cardstock.

Step Three:

For the directions, we’ll start with ghost and pumpkin stick puppets (or bookmarks).

Trace the template patterns onto the selected pieces of cardstock. Use scissors to cut out the traced patterns carefully.

Step Four:

The ghost template is made up of just one pattern piece, so you’re already done cutting that one out. The pumpkin has two pattern pieces that you should have already cut out – the pumpkin and the stem.

You can use green or brown cardstock for the stem and orange for the pumpkin. Attach the stem on the top middle part of the pumpkin paper cutout.

Step Five:

You can use a pencil to draw the eyes and mouth of the ghost and pumpkin puppets/bookmarks. Then, you will fill in the pencil traced patterns with a black sharpie.

Step Six:

Attach the ghost and pumpkin papercraft on craft sticks (or popsicle sticks) using craft glue to complete the puppets or bookmarks.

Step Seven:

Trace, cut out, and assemble for the bat and cat papercrafts to complete the bat and cat stick puppets.

Step Eight: 

Once all of the puppets have been made, use them for retelling stories, a puppet show, nursery rhymes, songs, as bookmarks, and more!

Terms of Use for the Printable Templates

These templates are free for personal, classroom, and group use.

This set may not be sold, published, or hosted on other websites. (Example: an individual, church, school, or another blogger may not upload the file onto their website for others to download there.)

There are additional terms of use – you can read them here.

Using the printable means you agree to the terms. Thanks!

Free Printable Halloween Stick Puppet Templates

Download the Halloween Stick Puppets Templates

More Halloween Printables You May Enjoy

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