12 Zodiac Animal Finger Puppets
We love Chinese New Year/ Lunar New Year. It is such a fun celebration. Full of energy and excitement for the new year. As you know, we have some great sets of animal coloring pages/ animal printables. Today.. we have a set of 12 Zodiac Animal Finger Puppets. If You have purchased any of sets before (Farm Animals and Jungle Animals), please do not BUY the WHOLE set again. I have created a “bolt on”, so you can download the “missing animals”.
PLEASE NOTE: these are FINGER PUPPETS! So they are smaller and NOT hand puppets! Though if you want to print this over two pages (fiddle with your printer settings they can be used as handpuppets as well!).
There are different ways you can use these Zodiac Finger Puppet Printables – either focus on the “Year of…” whatever animal is the current one. Or let your students choose any of the 12 OR get your students to make the animal from the year they were born in! Below is more info on dates.
This Zodiac Animal Finger Puppet set, includes:
- A monkey
- A snake
- AMENDED: An ox
- A dog
- A goat
- A horse
- A rooster
- A rabbit
- A pig
- NEW: A dragon
- NEW: A rat
- NEW: A tiger
Below you find the full set of 12 Zodiac Animals, a Chinese New Year freebie (the Snake!) AND the “bolt” of the additional three animals!
What are the Zodiac Animal Year Groups?
The Zodiac Animals rotate through on a 12yrs basis. So you can usually work out when the next one of your birth is (ie when you are 12, 24, 36 etc).
- 1. Year of the Rat Crafts (2008 – 2020 – 2032)
- 2. Year of the Ox – 2009 – 2021 – 2033
- 3. Year of the Tiger – 2010 – 2022 – 2032
- 4. Year of the Rabbit – 2011 – 2023 – 2035
- 5. Year of the Dragon – 2012 – 2024 – 2036
- 6. Year of the Snake – 2013 – 2025 – 2037
- 7. Year of the Horse – 2014 – 2026 – 2038
- 8. Year of the Goat – 2003 – 2015 – 2027 – 2039
- 9. Year of the Monkey – 2004 – 2016 – 2028
- 10. Year of the Rooster – 2005 – 2017 – 2029
- 11. Year of the Dog – 2006 – 2018 – 2030
- 12. Year of the Pig – 2007 – 2019- 2031
Also.. remember, each Zodiac Animal has it’s very own LUCKY colors. So when you are coloring your finger puppets, you may wish to consider your animals lucky colors! But they aren’t necessary!
I made the example of the Year of the Snake. For Snake’s lucky colors are red, yellow and black!
When is Chinese New Year 2024?
Chinese New Year 2024 is on Saturday 10th February 2024 and it is the Year of the Dragon. Dragon lucky colours are silver, gold and light gray.
So. Onto our fabulous set of printables!
Supplies needed for this set of Zodiac Animal FINGER Puppets!
PLEASE NOTE: these are FINGER PUPPETS! So they are smaller and NOT hand puppets! Though if you want to print this over two pages (fiddle with your printer settings they can be used as handpuppets as well!)
- Printer and printer paper
- Pens, crayons, pencils – your choice of coloring tools
- Scissors
- Glue stick (to add the finger holders)
As with many of our crafts, I try and make them accessible for as wide an audience as possible. So today, you can have the adorable little 3d Snake Finger Puppet completely for free! Simply enter $0 at check out! The complete set of 12 Zodiac Animal Finger Puppets is available for a small fee, as mentioned, you can also get the “bolt on” animals, if you have bought my previous animal sets (Farm & Jungle). REMEMBER: by joining my mailing list you will be alerted to seasonal freebies. Every so often, I make ALL these 3d animal free to Red Ted Art readers. So be sure to join the mailing list (in sidebar or footer of this page) today!
How to make your finger puppets
Making these finger puppets is really VERY EASY!!!
All you need to do, to assemble this cute farm animal puppets, is:
- Print your favourite animals
- Color them in
- Cut out carefully
- Fold the head into a zig zag
- Cut out the two strips for your fingers
- Glue the finger strips in place
Make one. Make them all. A fun collectible Jungle Animal Craft to enjoy in the classroom or at home.
Extension options: instead of usingthe finger strips, you can glue your puppet to clothes pegs to add to the snakes head! Or you can enlarge the printable to turn it into a bigger “hand puppet”.
2024 is the Year of the Dragon, so the single most fun and popular Dragon Puppet to make is this one – this continues to be free for Red Ted Art readers!:
If you love Chinese New Year, and you fancy more inspiration, we have MANY more crafts for you. Choose from:
Dragon Craft for the Year of the Dragon 2024
And of course our collection of Zodiac Animal Crafts here – with a subset of Zodiac Animal Bookmarks and Zodiac Animal Origami to make:
