Polar Bear Masks

We've been learning about Polar Bears this week and to go along with all the books we've read we decided to make Polar Bear masks. They turned out so cute!

These are the books we've been reading.

Polar Bears by Valerie Bodden

A non-fiction children's book with beautiful photographs of Polar Bears. I choose this book because each page only has one paragraph with facts about polar bears. I hate overwhelming my kids with too much information so this book was just perfect. Just to forewarn you, there is a page where a polar bear is eating a seal and there is blood on the ice. My kids are ok with that kind of stuff, but I know some aren't.

Where Do Polar Bears Live? by Sarah L. Thomson 

This book has good information about polar bear's and is environmentally friendly discussing how the climate is changing in the Arctic and scientist's don't believe polar bears will be able to live in the wild after 2020. There are pages in the back with ideas of how we can help the environment like by recycling.

Sleepover Larry by Daniel Pinkwater

This one of the books in the Larry series about a Polar Bear named Larry who lives in a hotel with a family. In this story the little girl has a sleepover with friends and Larry decides he wants to have one too. Larry invites his brother and friends from the zoo and they have a fun sleepover. I thought it was a cute, funny story.

The Biggest Thing in the World by Kenneth Steven

A Mother and baby polar bear come out of their den and the baby is mesmerized by all the big things he sees in the world around him. He wants to know what is the biggest thing in the World and no matter what size of thing the baby sees (like the Ocean), the Mother always says there is something bigger. In the end, the Mother's love for the baby bear is the biggest thing in the World. Such a sweet story!

The most difficult part about making our polar bear masks was making the holes in the paper plate for the eyes. I traced a small circle for the eyes and then used a craft knife to cut them out. I've seen those Martha Stewart circle punches that would work perfectly for this but I didn't have one so I improvised.

For the snout we used one of those empty Dole fruit cups. I also used it to make the ears by tracing it onto a piece of white card stock paper, cutting it out and then cutting the circle in half. This makes the two ears.

First we painted the clear fruit cup white for the snout and let it dry completely.

While the snout was drying, we put school glue onto a section of our paper plate, used a paint brush to cover an area with it, and then placed white crumpled tissue paper squares all over the glue. Do this on every section until the paper plate is covered.

We opted to not put tissue paper where the snout was going to go, but I don't think it matters which way you do it.

Next we glued the ears to the back of the paper plate.

Once the snout was dry we drew a bear mouth on the bottom of the cup with a black permanent marker.

Then I used my glue gun to run glue around the inside rim of the cup and glued it down onto the polar bear face. I used my glue gun to glue on the black pom pom nose too.

To finish the mask, simply punch holes onto the sides of the paper plate and tie a knot on each end with a piece of string or yarn.

They turned out so cute!

And my kids gave them a thumbs up! 

Another idea instead of using string would be to glue a tongue depressor stick to the bottom and they could just hold the mask up to their face. Or I think they would be cute using large wiggly eyes for the eyes and not making them masks. So many possibilities.  :)

Happy Crafting!

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