First Tutorial: "Pete the Cat - I Love My _____ Shoes" Paper Bag Puppet

So I was inspired by this post pinned all over Pinterest, but it was lacking the printable pieces!  Bummer!  I ran to Target hoping to buy these blue lunch bags and to my surprise I actually found them.  They were in the paper products aisle for $2.39 for 40 bags.  So I bought 2 sets. I then searched the internet for far too long, but eventually found this printable PDF to use for the Pete pieces.  Yes, you have to sign up for an account if you don't already have one to access the PDF.  I ended up using the 2 legs, head, tails, eyes, and shoes.  I planned to recreate my own, but really why recreate the wheel!  This one is cute enough as is, plus the extra legs really aren't that bad because my 4 year olds really struggle with cutting and some kids decided to get creative and give Pete 2 arms at the sides with extra legs.  The kids loved being able to choose the color of Pete's shoes.  For my classes red, white, and pink were the favorite shoe colors!

Check out my Pinterest Board dedicated to Pete the Cat here!

Step by Step Tutorial under cut

Preparation:

1. Buy Blue Paper Bags at Target
2. Print PDF as your master template
3. Copy pages 5 and 6 of the PDF on navy blue construction paper for Pete's body (yes you will have a body and 2 extra legs that you don't need)
4. Copy page 2 of the PDF on yellow paper for Pete's eyes
5. Copy page 3 on a variety of colors of construction paper 
6. Cut apart the eyes and shoes into groups of 2 to save time when making with the kiddos
7. Gather other supplies - scissors, glue sticks, pencils for writing names, hole punch, black scrap paper, white scrap paper

Directions:

1. Give each kiddo the blue body parts to cut out
2. Then give each student a paper bag to glue the pieces onto.  The head will go onto the bottom of the bag,  The two legs at the top.  The tail goes on the side.  Make sure they put their name somewhere on the bag!
3. Give each kiddo 2 shoes in the color of his/her choice to cut out/decorate and glue to the bag.
4. Then give each kid 2 yellow eyes to cut out and glue on Pete's face
5. Let your students hole punch black paper to make the pupils for Pete's eyes. Glue at the tops of the yellow eyes. They can also cut small strips of black paper for whiskers if you so desire... 
6. Give students white scrap paper to cut triangles for Pete's nose
7. Retell the story and go around the class having each kid sing "I love my ______ shoes."

Tips:

• Do this activity in small groups, NOT whole group
• If you have parent volunteers who love to help with art projects bring them in :)
• The second time I made this with students I did a little tweaking with the master by making a new master combining just the pieces I needed of pages 5 and 6 - so the head, 2 legs, and tail. Much less confusing for me and the kiddos and less wasted paper. 
• You can cut out triangle noses, punch black circles, make whiskers, etc. all in advance if you want to make it go quicker.  Or better yet have a few kiddos do it the day before!
• The tails are hard to cut out so copy extras!