Friday Thoughts - Brown Paper Bag Bear

Well...today was the last official day of my 'holidays'. I have enjoyed having a little bit more sleep in the morning and having longer and leisurely lunches, however, it has been a chance to try and catch up on a bit of work and completing a few crafty projects.

I do hope, though, that the children have had a fun and refreshing time over the holidays. You may be able to squeeze in one more crafty activity before getting back to school. Maybe you might want to try and make a brown paper bag bear. I made these with the children during last term for Book Week after reading 'No Bears' by M. McKinlay and L. Rudge, but you could make these after reading any 'bear' based book (eg. 'Big Smelly Bear' by B. Teckentrup, 'The Very Itchy Bear' by N. Bland) or purely just for fun!

What you would need:

• a brown paper lunch bag
• paper
• textas, crayons, pencils
• scissors
• newspaper
• sticky tape
• glue

Steps:

 Position the bag so that the opening faces downwards, not upwards.

Draw a round nose and colour it in (about 3-4cms in diameter) and cut it out.

Twist the top corners of the bag a little and keep these twists from untwisting by using tape. These will become the ears.

Draw two little dots for eyes and glue down the nose, as per the photo below. You may wish to draw on a mouth.
Scrunch up a little of the newspaper and place inside bag, being careful not to overfill it. Fold up the bottom of the bag a little and tape up the opening.

All finished...however, little designers may wish to make a body for their bear. This idea could also be modified to make a bear puppet by simply omitting the newspaper.

Have a fun and creative weekend!