Free Polar Bear Coloring Pages

Polar bears live on the sea ice of the Arctic, around the North Pole. They never live in Antarctica with the penguins — a fact that surprises a lot of children, and a useful one to get on the table before the crayons come out. They are the largest bears in the world, and they spend their lives hunting seals from the ice, swimming between floes, and resting on the snow. Children usually meet them as the white bear in a winter storybook, which is why they are such a popular animal to colour. The real coat looks white or creamy yellow, but each hair is actually hollow and clear, with black skin underneath. That is a perfectly good way to colour these sheets: leave most of the body uncoloured, or use a pale cream or light yellow crayon, and fill the nose and paw pads in black or dark brown. It is also fine to ignore it. A blue polar bear, a rainbow one, or one whose fur is every colour of the crayon box is just as welcome. The black nose and the big paw pads are the two shapes that make it look like a polar bear rather than a white teddy, so those are worth pointing out. The eight designs get steadily harder. First is a polar bear curled into a ball asleep, thick outlines and one huge open shape that suit toddlers still learning to stay inside the lines. Then a cub rolling on its back with paws in the air, a sitting cub waving, and one standing on its hind legs with both paws raised, all still bold and friendly. After that the poses get more interesting: a polar bear sliding on its belly, one sitting with its head tilted, a walking profile with fur along the body, and a detailed face portrait with fluffy fur for children who like a longer, careful page. Belly-sliding is the pose most children want to act out. Polar bears slide on their stomachs to get across the ice quickly, the same way a child goes down a snowy hill. The sliding sheet is the natural one to talk about while colouring, and it pairs well with the sleeping sheet, which shows how a polar bear rests with its paws tucked in against the cold. Every sheet prints on landscape US Letter paper at 200 DPI, so the polar bear fills the page without being cut off. Plain copier paper is fine for crayons and colored pencils. If you are using markers or paint, slightly thicker card stock stops the colour bleeding through — worth doing on the portrait, where the fur lines sit a little closer together. In the classroom these pages pair well with a lesson on the Arctic, on how animals stay warm, on the letter P, or on the difference between the North Pole and the South Pole. Print a polar bear next to a penguin page and let children spot which animal lives where. The sleeping sheet is finished in a few minutes; the face portrait can fill a quiet stretch of the afternoon. Print a few different designs and let each child pick the one that matches their patience that day. The bear pages show the brown and black relatives, the same bear waves beside a penguin slide on the printable zoo scenes, and the other animal pages has every animal that lives somewhere warmer.