How to Make a Fragrant Paper Brown Bear

Whether your preschool class is studying the sense of smell or working on a unit on bears, this art project is easy to do. Every student will make a fragrant brown bear that looks like a bear and smells like coffee. It does require some advance preparation but the results are well worth the time and effort.

Difficulty:

Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• Stiff piece of cardboard
• Line drawing of a bear
• Scissors
• Heavy art paper
• White glue
• Dixie cups
• Popsicle sticks
• 1/4 cup of finely ground coffee
• Permanent black marker
• Newspapers
• Black crayons

1. Draw or find a picture of a brown bear. If you do not draw well, trace a bear from a preschool coloring book. Transfer the drawing to a stiff piece of cardboard. Cut it out. Use the cut out as a template to draw a bear on the art paper. Make one drawing for each student by tracing around the cardboard bear with a permanent black marker. If you don't use a permanent marker, the ink may run later.

2. Spread newspapers out on the tables where the children will be working. For each child, fill one Dixie cup half way with white glue. Add a tbsp. of water and stir with a Popsicle stick. Place 1/4 cup of ground coffee in a Dixie cup for each child. Pass out the bears. Give each child one black crayon.

3. Tell the children to draw in the bear's eyes, mouth and claws with the black crayon. Collect the crayons.

4. Model using the popsicle stick to spread glue all over the bear. Tell the students to try to keep inside the lines as much as possible and to try to make every part of the bear except the eyes and mouth coated with the glue. Do not pick up the papers yet or the glue will run outside of the lines.

5. Shake the coffee grounds evenly all over the bear so that the brown coffee will stick. Now the brown bears have smelly fur. Wait for the glue to dry completely before moving the papers. After the glue dries, gently pick up the paper. Excess coffee will fall off onto the newspaper. The bears will smell like coffee for as long as they hang on the board or on a refrigerator at home.