Simple Ghost Puppets

I remembered this idea the other day while I was working with the kids in the art center. They had free choice and were drawing and started making trick-or-treat bags. It made me think of Halloween and ghosts. I had found this activity years ago and hadn't tried it. We didn't have pipe cleaners out, but we had popcicle sticks so that's what I used. I prefer using the pipe cleaners because later, I tried making one at home and with the pipe cleaners, the ghost is more like a puppet. The activity is very simple to do.

Tissue Ghost Puppets

Materials:
Two white tissues,
pipe cleaner,
black marker.


Steps:
1. Have your child lay one tissue open on a table and have her crumble the other tissue into a ball and place it in the middle of the opened tissue.
2. Pull up the corners of the flat tissue and twist the tissue to create a ball head.
3. wrap one end of a pipe cleaner around the neck of the ghost, holding the head in place.
4. Loop the other end of the chenille into a holder.
5. Using the holder, show the child how to manipulate the ghost up and down or to fly.
6. Draw a face on the ghost with a thin black marker.



Here’s the variation on that activity.
using a popcicle stick. I used some white scrap paper to cover the stick for the ghost I made pictured below. I used different colors for the mouth and eyes to try to get the kids interested, but they had finished making some trick or treat bags and moved on to another activity. You could also add googley eyes instead of drawing them on. That would be neat for the ghost because those eyes move.