Hello my Omschooligans! Today in the Omschool Tree Fort, Teacher Omi (that's me) is happy to share free printable Brown Bear, Brown Bear lesson plans for preschool and ECSE classrooms. It's part of the Omschool Book BAGS units which feature kids' book themed activities, games and snack crafts. The inspiration is "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?" and Omschooligan grandson Emmett, who loves all the bear books, particularly Brown Bear, by Bill Martin and illustrator Eric Carle. Here are free printable bingo and matching games, coloring pages, crafts, worksheets, craft projects, snack craft recipes and learning activities based on Brown Bear. I've included activities from the Martin/Carle bear books too.
Here is the complete bibliography for the classic four-book Brown Bear & Friends series written by Bill Martin Jr. and illustrated by Eric Carle:
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
Author: Bill Martin Jr.
Illustrator: Eric Carle
Publication Year: 1967 (Henry Holt and Company)
Overview: The iconic first collaboration featuring rhythmic repetition and a vibrant parade of animals introducing young readers to colors.
Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?
Author: Bill Martin Jr.
Illustrator: Eric Carle
Publication Year: 1991 (Henry Holt and Company)
Overview: The companion book focusing on zoo animal sounds, such as a roaring lion, a fluting flamingo, and a trumpeting elephant.
Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See?
Author: Bill Martin Jr.
Illustrator: Eric Carle
Publication Year: 2003 (Henry Holt and Company)
Overview: A rhythmic exploration highlighting various North American and global endangered wildlife species.
Baby Bear, Baby Bear, What Do You See?
Author: Bill Martin Jr.
Illustrator: Eric Carle
Publication Year: 2007 (Henry Holt and Company)
Overview: The final installment in the quartet, featuring North American animals like a red fox, a flying squirrel, and a mountain goat interacting with their mother.
Free printable Brown Bear, Brown Bear lesson plans
DLTK-Teach Brown Bear Activities & Printables 
Homeschool Share Brown Bear Unit Study Super Teacher Worksheets Brown Bear Resources DLTK-Teach also has free printables from "Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What do You Hear?" Polar Bear, Polar Bear was written 25 years after Martin and Carle's Brown Bear came out in 1967. I remember how tickled our eldest (who was now a homeschool mama) was to find that her beloved Brown Bear had a friend. Images from this story include zoo animals: polar bear, lion, hippopotamus, flamingo, zebra, boa constrictor, elephant, leopard, peacock, walrus, zookeeper and children.
1+1+1=1 has other free printable kindergarten learning games and preschool activity packages. Themes include: ballerinas, princess, rainbow, ocean, pond life, love, Christmas, winter, spring, bugs, cats, baby animals, birds, construction trucks and machines, monsters, farm and more. There are printable reading packs on children's literature favorites: Mickey Mouse, Handy Manny, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Noah's Ark, Veggie Tales, Word World, Nemo, Hermie, Tarzan, Word World, Doc McStuffins, Dora the Explorer, Octonauts, Little Einsteins, Chicka-Chicka Boom Boom, Five Little Monkeys, Dinosaur Train and Thomas the Train.
Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds Printables Super Coloring Brown Bear Pages 
Brown Bear, Brown Bear printable games
- Brown Bear Bingo: Use these free printable bingo cards to practice matching, sight word recognition and listening skills. Print in black and white and extend the lesson plans into a craft project.
- Brown Bear Matching Game: Now zoom in on this matching game and print it. Paste onto recycled cardboard cereal boxes to make it sturdier. Instruct students to cut three of the game sheets into matching cards. They will then use these to play Brown Bear Animal Matching.
- Animal Memory Game: Using the same animal template cards, pasted on recycled cardboard cereal boxes, have students create memory card games.
- Brown Bear Word Match Game: Print this list of animal names and have students cut apart to make word match game.
- Brown Bear Sandwiches
- Ingredients
- face: two slices brown wheat bread
- leave square or use a wide mouth jar to cut round bread circles
- you can also use Uncrustables for face
- filling: Nutella, peanut or almond butter or cheese slices and cream cheese
- ears: 2 round crackers (if you go with cheese) or chocolate cookies (Oreo, chocolate fudge covered, or fudge striped) if you go with peanut butter
- break in half or leave whole
- smile: apple slice or mouth--two apple slices making a circle
- teeth: raisins or almonds
- eyes: green olive slices or purple grape slices
- nose: end of grape
- fur: crushed chocolate graham crackers or cookies
- To make bear sandwiches
- spread sandwich filling to make sandwich
- partially insert to cookies on top or corners to make ears
- spread nut butter or cream cheese over sandwich face
- attach mouth in smile or open with two apple slices
- add teeth, eyes and nose
- and "fur" around features
- Polar Bear Sandwiches
- Make the polar bear sandwich exactly like brown bear only use white bread and vanilla cookies or yellow crackers. You can also use cheese slices cut round for ears.
- Brown Bear Cupcakes
- Frost cupcakes with chocolate frosting.
- Stick on Froot Loop cereal eyes and noses. Or use candy corns for noses.
- Use two mini Oreos or Chips Ahoy for ears.
- Cut tongue piece from strawberry Fruit By the Foot.
- Brown Bear and Friends Treats: Mix these together for story time snack. Encourage kids to talk about what colors are the same as the story and which are different.
- goldfish crackers
- gummy bears
- black licorice cats (instead of purple)
- red bird cookies (using cookie recipe below)
- blue horse (using cookie recipe and images cut to make cookie cutters)
- Vidal gummy green frogs
- Yellow ducks by Quackie Quackers
- chocolate animal cracker sheep
Simple Kid-Friendly Roll-Out Sugar Cookie Dough
Prep time: 15 mins | Chill time: 30 mins | Bake time: 8–10 mins | Yields: Approx. 16–20 cookies
Ingredients:
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
¾ cup unsalted butter, softened
¾ cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
Instructions:
Mix Dry Ingredients: In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
Cream Butter & Sugar: In a large bowl, beat the softened butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Add Wet Ingredients: Beat in the egg and vanilla extract until smooth.
Combine: Slowly add the dry ingredients into the wet mixture, stirring just until a soft dough forms.
Roll & Cut: Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface to about ¼-inch thickness. Let the kids use cookie cutters or cardboard templates to cut out their shapes!
Bake: Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 8 to 10 minutes until the edges are just lightly golden. Cool completely before decorating.
Natural Blue & Red Food Dyes for Kids
If you want to color your cookie dough or frosting naturally without artificial food dyes, here are some wonderfully simple plant-based options you can make right at home:
Beet Juice: Blend or grate a fresh red beet, strain out the juice through a fine-mesh sieve or cheesecloth. A few drops yield a vibrant pink-to-red hue.
Pomegranate or Tart Cherry Juice: Reduced down slightly on the stove into a concentrated syrup, it adds a lovely natural red tint.
Natural Blue Dye:
Red Cabbage & Baking Soda: Chop up red purple cabbage and boil it in a small amount of water until dark purple-blue. Strain the liquid, then stir in a tiny pinch of baking soda—the alkaline reaction instantly shifts the purple liquid into a vibrant, brilliant blue!
Butterfly Pea Flower Powder: A natural herbal powder that dissolves easily in a splash of warm water to create a striking, true-blue color.
- Bear Paw Cookies
- Make pumpkin cookie dough and roll out.
- Use this template above to make bear paw print patterns.
- Attach to recycled cardboard to make them sturdier.
- Trace around pattern with a plastic cutlery knife to cut out.
- Bake.
- Use decorator frosting to draw in paw pads.
- Fill in toes and paw pads in with frosting.
- Poke candy corn into toes with points sticking out, to look like claws.
Note this image is the best I could get from Gemini. The points of the candy corns should be sticking out of the cookie to look like claws. I know you Omschooligans will understand what I mean! 😀😍
🐾 Honey-Sweetened Roll-Out Pumpkin Cookies 🎃
Healthy, naturally sweetened bear paw cookies perfect for your Omschool snack craft!
20 mins
1 hour
10–12 mins
18–24 cookies
Ingredients
- 2 ½ cups whole wheat pastry flour (or all-purpose flour)
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp ground nutmeg
- ½ tsp ground ginger
- ½ tsp baking soda
- ¼ tsp salt
- ⅓ cup unsalted butter, softened
- ⅓ cup pure honey
- ⅓ cup pure pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie mix)
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- For decorating: Chocolate frosting & candy corn (for claws)
Instructions
- Whisk Dry Ingredients: In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
- Cream Butter & Honey: In a large bowl, beat the softened butter and honey together until smooth and creamy.
- Add Wet Ingredients: Beat in the pumpkin puree, egg, and vanilla extract until well combined.
- Combine: Gradually add the dry ingredient mixture into the wet ingredients, mixing just until a soft dough forms.
- Chill the Dough: Divide the dough in half, flatten into discs, wrap in parchment paper, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
- Roll & Cut: Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Roll out chilled dough to about ¼-inch thickness and use your bear paw template to cut out shapes.
- Bake: Place cookies on the baking sheet and bake for 10 to 12 minutes until edges are lightly set. Let cool completely.
- Decorate: Use chocolate frosting to draw the paw pads, and poke candy corns into the toes with the white points sticking out to look like claws!
Brown Bear and Friends Recycle Bin Craft Projects
- Build A Bear and Friends
- Using recycle bin materials, have children create one of the characters from the story. Make sure every character is represented.
- Have them act out the story using their characters.
- Paper Bag Puppets, Costumes and animal masks
- Print the masks above and have children color or paint them in the colors from the story. You can print on colored construction paper too.
- Have children create costumes and wear masks.
- a simple costume is to wear coordinating color pants and shirt (green frog, blue horse, etc.)
- Or make the masks into paper bag puppets or costumes.
- Using large paper grocery bags, have children paint and decorate their bags to look like different animals from the story.
- They should cut eye holes and place the bags over their heads as masks.
- Have them act out the stories.
Omschool Throwback: When teacher Omi was young, no one bought expensive store Halloween costumes. We made our own using paper bags and found items. It was a lot of fun and we enjoyed being creative! I'm sure you do too! 🐟🐱🐈🐶🐎🐑🐦🦆
Omschool History Note: We
homeschooled our four children from 1992-2005. Home education was pretty new
and computer resources nil. Our kids now 38,36, 34 and 28. We loved the
Martin-Carle books in preschool. And now, as Omi and Opi, we have 13 grandchildren who love the reading as much as their parents! Each family their own Brown Bear, Brown Bear and Polar
Bear, Polar Bear on their bookshelves! It's good to pass these classics on to
another generation!
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