🎓 Skills Your Child Will Develop

• ♻️ Environmental Thinking — Using natural or recycled materials in crafts begins to develop awareness that materials have a life beyond their original use — an early foundation for environmental stewardship and sustainable thinking.
• 👁️ Hand-Eye Coordination — Guiding scissors along a line, placing stickers exactly, and painting within a space all require the visual-motor integration that handwriting, sports, and detailed work depend on.
• 📋 Planning & Sequencing — Multi-step craft projects require children to think about what comes first, next, and last — building the procedural sequencing skills that underlie reading comprehension, mathematics, and everyday problem solving.
• 💪 Persistence & Resilience — Working through a craft that doesn't go as planned, fixing mistakes, and persisting to completion teaches children that effort — not talent — produces results, a mindset that predicts lifelong learning.

This is a great Halloween hand puppet for your preschooler to make from the basic felt hand puppet pattern. This preschool Halloween black cat hand puppet with bright green buttons eyes and a fluffy chenille stick tail makes a fun preschool craft for your preschooler to enjoy long after Halloween is gone.

Materials You Will Need

Two black felt squares
Another color of felt or cloth for the nose
Two flat green buttons or green felt
A white crayon or colored pencil to trace your preschooler's hand on the felt
Scissors
Bendable fabric glue
Craft glue that can be used on plastic (available from children's craft suppliers)
One fluffy black chenille stick for the tail (optional)

How to Make it

Step 1:
Lay out the felt. Place your preschool child's hand on the felt with his/her thumb and pinkie spread out to the sides like arms.

Step 2:
Help your preschooler trace around his/her hand leaving about half an inch allowance all around the edge. Make a dome at the top rather than following the shape of the fingers. Cut out the shape.

Step 3:
Use the front to trace the back on the other piece of felt. Cut out.

Step 4:
Cut triangles for the ears out of the scraps.

Step 5:
Lay out the back of the puppet, inside up, and glue the edge of the ears just inside the edge of the top of the head.

Step 6:
On the outside of the front piece, glue on two green buttons for eyes with a non-toxic  craft glue that can be used on plastic. If you do not have buttons, you can cut two circles from green fabric or felt.

Step 7:
Cut a small triangle of felt or cloth for a nose or draw it with a crayon. (Not all colors will show on black felt.)

Step 8:
Draw cat eyebrow whiskers and cheek whiskers with a white colored pencil.

Step 9:
Glue the front to the back with fabric glue, making sure the face is on the outside and catching the edge of the ears between the front and the back.

Step 10:
A fabric scrap or a black chenille stick can be attached on the back for a tail. To glue the chenille stick, use craft glue.