A couple weeks ago our family went camping, which is a really big deal, because we are NOT campers! Two of our kids attend a school where they have a Fall Campout each year so we committed to staying one night…and although my husband and I both agree that we are more “glampers,” than campers, we ended up having a ton of fun and our kids loved the whole experience. I have a feeling we will be camping again!
My daughter was super excited because her daddy bought her a pink flashlight and she was really looking forward to making shadow puppets in the tent with her big brothers. Of course, when we got home, she wanted to create some animal shadow puppets to play with. One evening, last week, we went to work creating these cute little popsicle stick puppets that have provided a ton of content for imaginary play and story telling for little miss.
I used my Cricut Expression 2 to cut out the animals and other shapes, but if you do not have a Cricut, simply create a document with templates that you can cut out of card stock. Here is one I put together that you can print off and use to make your own animal shadow puppets without using a Cricut. animal template pdf
The possibilities are endless with these little puppets. You can create seasonal themes, print off silhouettes of your child’s favorite story book or movie characters, weather puppets, dinosaurs, garden, farm, cars, princesses, fairies, and so much more.
One thing that I realized, after creating so many characters, was that they were hard to hold onto. So with an old shoebox and a pair of scissors, I created a diy holder for all of the puppets. This made a perfect “stage” for my daughter to put the puppets on as she told her story. The great part about using a shoebox, is that it doubles as storage to hold all of the characters and a flashlight so they are contained & easy to find for future use.
Check out my video tutorial above for tips on making some shadow puppets with your own children. 
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