Paper Plate Bear Mask Craft

My preschooler is a huge fan of Karma Wilson’s Bear book series. It seems like she picks out one of the bear books every other day for me to read to her at bedtime. She is about the size my boys were when we made our Polar Bear Masks so I knew she would enjoy this Paper Plate Bear Mask Craft which goes along perfectly with all of the bear books she loves.

Supplies needed:

paper plate
brown tissue paper squares
plastic fruit cup (contents eaten, container washed and dried)
brown paint
paint brush
large brown (or black) pom
school glue
brown cardstock paper
hole punch
string
craft knife (for adult use)
hot glue gun (for adult use)

Tutorial:

1. Prepare your paper plate

Start by cutting two eye holes in your paper plate with a craft knife (adult use only). I traced the smaller end of a medicine cup for my holes and the centers of the eye holes were about 2 1/4″ apart.

2. Paint fruit cup

Turn the plastic fruit cup upside down and paint it brown. Set it aside to dry completely. It may need 2 coats.

3. Apply tissue paper to the plate

While your plastic cup is drying, add streaks of glue all over the bottom side of your paper plate and cover it with brown tissue paper squares. You can leave the small circle area uncovered where the nose will go. Let it dry completely.

4. Make & glue ears

For our ears, we traced the plastic fruit cup onto a brown sheet of cardstock paper and cut it out. Then we cut the circle in half. Glue the ears to the back of the paper plate.

5. Glue fruit cup & large pom

Once your plastic fruit cup and paper plate are dry, have an adult put hot glue around the rim of the fruit cup and glue it onto the paper plate. Also, hot glue the large pom at the top of the fruit cup.

6. Attach strings

Finish your bear mask by punching a hole on each side of the mask, right at the top of the eye level and knotting a piece of string to each hole. I made a knot in one hole and then put it around my daughter’s head to measure it for size before cutting my string and making a knot in the other hole. You could also leave it as two strings and just tie a knot once it’s on your child’s head.

I actually made one of these alongside with my daughter so we have two of them. Both my 2nd grader and my daughter have been LOVING them!