This Horton Hears a Who! craft is easy to make and features the adorable elephant from the beloved Dr. Seuss book. Your kids will have a blast making the Horton paper bag puppet.
This year, for National Read Across America Day and Dr. Seuss’s birthday, celebrate by reading aloud Horton Hears a Who! and making your very own Horton Paper Bag Puppet.
Read Across America is an excellent program that cultivates diverse readers and gives parents the tools they need to help their kids become lifelong book lovers. Reading wonderful Dr. Seuss books like Horton Hears a Who! is the perfect way to celebrate the joys of reading with your children.
Horton’s story is a great way to teach your kids about kindness, and that anyone – no matter how big or small – can make a difference to those around them.
When you’ve made your Horton paper bag puppet craft, hop over and download my free Horton Hears a Who! Bookmark, too. Your kids will love having the puppet as well as the bookmark to go along with their beloved book.
Horton Hears a Who Puppet Craft
Materials:
- Free Horton paper bag puppet template (download form located at the end of this post)
- Colored construction paper or cardstock (grey, white, pink, and green)
- Brown paper bag
- Glue stick
- Scissors
- White chalk marker
Instructions:
Prepare the Horton Hears a Who Template
Download and print out the Horton paper bag puppet template. The head, ears, and body should be printed on grey paper, the eyes on white paper, the flower on pink paper, and the stem on green paper.
If you don’t have colored printer paper or cardstock, you can also print out all the template patterns in black and white. Then simply cut all of them out and trace them on the respective colored construction papers. You will need to draw in the details with a black marker, using the template patterns as a reference.
Cut out all the template patterns with scissors. You don’t need to cut out the space between Horton’s face and his trunk because later on when you stick the head cutout on the paper bag, it will look like the grey space is part of his body.
Assemble the Template Cutouts
Glue the body cutout to the long part of the brown paper bag. Glue the eye cutouts to the head cutout, making sure they line up with the outlines for Horton’s eyes.
Glue the stem of the flower to the end of Horton’s trunk. Then glue the pink flower on top of the stem, slightly overlapping the two cutouts.
Apply glue to the bottom flap of the paper bag and place the head cutout on top. Press gently and wait for the glue to dry completely.
Draw the Finishing Touches
The Horton paper bag puppet is already so cute and ready for your kids to play with, but there is one finishing touch that really brings Horton to life.
Using a white chalk marker, draw highlights along the edges of the elephant’s body and ears. These white highlights will make Horton look more realistic.
You are done with the Horton Hears a Who! paper bag puppet! Isn’t the kind elephant super cute?
More Dr. Seuss Craft Ideas
We have a whole collection of Dr. Seuss paper bag puppets for you to make with your kids! These are characters from all of Dr. Seuss’s classic books and definitely worth adding to your collection.
- The Lorax Paper Bag Puppet
- Thing 1 and Thing 2 Paper Bag Puppets
- Mr. Knox Paper Bag Puppet
- Fox in Socks Paper Bag Puppet
Hello! I would like to use the template!