Settle in for some serious sleep in this cozy bear cave complete with all the creature comforts…sofa, table, rug, artwork, and a flickering fire!
We read Sleep Tight, Little Bear, written by Martin Waddell, illustrated by Barbara Firth (Candlewick press, 2005). When Little Bear finds a little cave close to the Big Cave, he moves right in. Soon, there’s a bed, a table, a chair, and a stuffed doll! Supper is served in the little cave and Little Bear is having a grand time…until bedtime. Will Big Bear miss him? He’d better check. Sure enough, back at the Big Cave, there’s a story and a snuggle waiting.
You’ll need:
- 1 cardboard box lid or tray
- Brown packing/wrapping paper
- 1 small box
- Felt, any color
- A selection of patterned paper
- 1 bear cave frames template, printed on 8.5″ x 11″ paper
- 1 LED votive
- Yellow and red cellophane
- 1 half of a toilet paper tube
- Brown construction paper
- Scissors and tape for construction
- Markers for decorating
The bear cave’s base is a box lid or cardboard tray. We used these 9.5″ x 11″ cardboard trays (you might recognize them from this butterfly garden post!).
First, crinkle up brown packing or wrapping paper. Then arch it over the top of the base and secure to the sides and back of with tape. We taped a strip of crinkled paper to the front of the base as well.
Now, for the inside! We made a half a toilet paper tube bear (with a dot sticker nose), a sofa made out of a little box with a bit of felt glued to it, a patterned paper rug, and a table made out of a wood circle and spool.
Ready for some artwork? Cut the frames from the template, draw some pictures, and attach your artwork to the walls of the cave with tape loops. We also added some s in fall colors to make things extra cozy (we get our leaves from Discount School Supply, 200 leaves are $6).
The final touch? A flickering fire! Tape red and yellow cellophane to the front of an LED votive. Then add a few construction paper “sticks” over top.
To make things extra fun, we turned off the lights during the fire construction portion of the program. It was so cute to see these little illuminated caves on all the tables. But here’s the cave that completely captured my heart…this bear is roasting a marshmallow!
The hummingbirds were created by Katie. Aren’t they cute? She made a green version modeled after the ruby-throated hummingbird, and a purple version modeled after the violet sabrewing hummingbird.
To make a hummingbird, glue a thin black construction paper beak onto a large (1.5″ diameter) pom-pom. Glue a smaller (.75″) pom-pom underneath the beak. Add a pair of small wiggle eyes and 2 feathery wings and you’re set!
Then, slowly, and oh-so-quietly, kids and their bears went in search of their hummingbirds.
Looking for more feathered friends? Check out this 
This project consists of 1) A tea set with cookies; and 2) A pair hand grabbers for the snatching game. The cookies have magnets hot glued to them, and the hand grabbers have paper clips taped to them. Thus, when the hand slaps down on the cookie, it picks it up!
We’ll begin with the tea set. To make the table, hot glue 4 paper cups to the bottom of a corrugated cardboard base. The cookie platter is a flipped-over cup hot glued to a small paper plate. You don’t want the cookie platter to be too tall, so you can either cut a full size paper cup down to 2.25″ inches, or use a shorter cup (we used 3.5oz plastic drinking cups from Target). Decorate the platter and table with patterned tape, color masking tape, and/or markers. Then hot glue the platter firmly to the top of the table.
To make the teapot, flip a paper cup over, then tape (or hot glue) a poster board handle to one side. Cut the spout from the template and trace it onto white poster board. Fold the tea pot spout in half (the fold is marked with a solid black line on the template). Next, fold the spout’s tabs outward (the tabs are marked with dotted lines on the template). Attach the tabs to the tea pot with tape (or hot glue). Finish by hot gluing a small pom-pom to the top of the tea pot.
To make tea cups, cut 2 paper cups down to 2″. Use tape (or hot glue) to attach a white poster board handle to the side of each cup. Then place the cups on a white poster board “saucers.” Decorate the teapot, cups, and saucers with patterned tape, color masking tape, and/or markers.
The creamer is a paper cup cut down to 2″. Cut the creamer spout from the template, and trace it into poster board. Fold the spout in half (the fold is marked with a solid black line on the template). Next, fold the spout’s tabs outward (the tabs are marked with dotted lines on the template). Attach the tabs to the cup with tape (or hot glue). We filled the creamer with white cotton ball “cream.”
Ready to play? Have 2 kids select a grabber and sit down at the table. On “Go!” each kid must use his/her grabber to quickly remove cookies from the platter. The kid who grabs the most cookies, wins!