woodland animal paper play set

Make a woodland animal paper playset with our latest printable template, based on animals from the North American woodlands.

This is a fun Fall or Autumn themed craft for kids which is very simple to cut out and glue together. The finished project becomes a DIY paper toy to inspire imaginary play or a pretty Fall-themed decoration for your mantlepiece.

Get the template here

How cute are these paper woodland animals? I especially love the hedgehog – but don’t tell him he’s my favourite!

Of course, the bear and deer are lovely too…

Lately on the blog we’ve been sharing Australian animal crafts. These are great (Australian animals are awesome!), but I also want to share things which are relevant to our Northern Hemisphere readers too, so this month I’ve decided to focus on woodland animals, beginning with this printable play set.

The finished craft becomes an Autumn-themed small world. My own girls are too big for this kind of thing now but I know they would have absolutely loved this printable when they were younger. It’d be almost as good as mini plastic ponies to them.

Of course, any self-respecting woodland animal needs a forest to call home, right? We’ve included a forest with Fall coloured leaves for the animals to live in.

I found three trees was enough for our Autumn scene, but you can print and create as many as you’d like. Here is how to make the set.

How to make a woodland animal paper play set

You will need:

The paper play set template printed onto card stock
Glue stick
Scissors
Scoring tool or blunt butter knife
Ruler
Pencils or felt tip markers if making the colour-your-own version

How to make the animals:

Score the fold lines along the feet, neck and tail (but not the body join – this one does not get folded). Scoring makes it REALLY easy to fold, and when using card stock it helps a lot.
Cut out the shapes
Fold the neck tab down and the feet forward (note: the deer has hoofs instead of folded feet).
Bend into a cylinder shape and glue the tab to hold in place
Glue on the head, as well as the tail for the animals which have one

How to make the trees:

Print out three copies of the tree in the color you wish to make
Score along all of the fold lines
Cut out the trees and fold along all the lines
Fold the bottom section along the horizontal line up, then fold the line at an angle back down so it lines up with the horizontal fold. Fold the tree down the center and glue the tab over the back
Repeat with the other two sections of tree, then glue each folded section on top of
each other
Place glue on the side on top of the stack, then glue into a tree shape. Once it’s been glued into a tree shape it will no longer fold flat

The printable includes a full copy of these instructions plus the step-by-step photos. It also includes a black and white line art version so kids can colour their own if they prefer.