Polar Bears and Polar Bear Paintings

We had a great time learning about Polar Bears and especially liked painting these arctic winter scenes. There is a great tutorial for the paintings here: arctic polar bear paintings. Instead of plain white, we used this puffy paint, which made the bears look even furrier and bear-ier.

I liked seeing the variation in how these paintings turned out. The blog linked above suggested that the children use plastic wrap pressed on the wet paint to create a cracked, icy texture on the blue ground. That worked pretty well in some of the pictures:

But not so well in others. On the other hand, the salt crystals in the sky in this picture made quite a nice snowy effect.

This is probably one of our favorite art projects we've ever done. We just love those wintry, puffy bears!

Some more polar bear stuff:

Polar bears have clear, hollow fur, and under the right conditions, it can actually turn green!

Not really about bears, but interesting when discussing the arctic: how to build an igloo 

The boys loved this polar bear "spy camera" so much!
They thought this was hilarious, too.