Making holiday ornaments like this bear ornament with kids is such a fun way to develop fine motor skills, and then see the work hanging on the Christmas tree. Kids will love this teddy bear ornament but occupational therapists will love it even more for the developmental aspects! Add this bear ornament craft to your occupational therapy Christmas crafts.
Bear Ornament
Check out these Christmas Fine Motor Activities for more creative ways to work on fine motor skills and address development of skills this Christmas season.
Today, I have a fun bear craft to share with you. This bear ornament is such a fun way to get kids creating and crafting during the Christmas season. We used this as a bear Christmas ornament, and a children’s book extension activity for the Bear Books by Karma Wilson.
We made the bear craft based on Bear Stays Up for Christmas. It’s true that in our house, we do love to come up with crafts and activities based on children’s books and this Christmas book themed Christmas ornament craft was no exception.
How to make a Bear ornament
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When we came up with this bear craft, we knew we wanted to create a cute bear that matched the bear in Karma Wilson’s Bear Stays Up for Christmas. The bear books are such a fun series to read and we loved to see Bear’s friends help him stay up to celebrate Christmas.
Bear Stays Up for Christmas is the perfect book to add to your reading list this Christmas season. It shows us how bear discovers the best gift of all is giving. How fun would it be to read this book, make the cute bear craft Christmas ornament, and then give it to a friend?
You’ll need just a few materials to make this bear craft:
- Cardboard
- Brown twine
- Peel and Stick Googly Eyes
- Black crafting pom pom
- Glue Tacky crafting glue works well. Another idea is glue dots.
- Tape
This is such an easy bear craft. It would be perfect for preschool aged kids or grade school children. To start, you’ll need to cut a bear face shape from the cardboard.
Bear Craft
Bear crafts can be made this time of year, or all year long to work on skills like fine motor work, eye-hand coordination, bilateral coordination, and more.
Then, use the brown twine to wrap all around the cardboard face shape. Tape the twine to the back of the bear to keep it in place.
Fine motor tip: This activity is a great way to address bilateral coordination skills. Wrapping the twine around the cardboard shape allows kids to coordinate both hands together with a working hand and a non-dominant, assisting hand. This type of activity requires a child to work at midline while looking down toward their hands. It is a good activity for kids to seem to switch hands when writing or require prompts to hold the paper when writing and other tasks that utilize an assisting hand and precision work with the dominant hand.
Read here for more information on creative ways to address bilateral coordination.
Continue to wrap the twine around the cardboard until most of the cardboard is not showing, including around the bear’s ears.
Add a small piece of tape to the back of the bear craft to hold the end of the twine down.
Next, stick the peel and stick googly eyes on the bear’s face.
Use a dab of glue or a glue dot to stick the crafting pom pom onto the bear craft.
Finally, use a small piece of twine on the back of the bear craft to create a loop in order to hang the bear craft Christmas ornament onto the Christmas tree.
While this bear craft was based on a popular children’s Christmas book, it would be a great accompaniment for any bear themed preschool book or children’s book.
Need more ornament crafts?
Nativity Tree Decorations
Spice Jar Lid Star Ornaments
Dog Ornament
Pine Tree Ornament
Looking for more kid-created Christmas ornaments? Here are some of our favorites:
ee cummings Little Tree Christmas Ornament
Olive the Other Reindeer Ornament
Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.
