Bear Stays Up - Easy Quilt Craft

Books become even better when you pair them with fun activities!  See what we did to go along with this month's Monthly Crafting Christmas Book Club selection!


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My bloggy pal Hilary over at Raising Fairies and Knights started a fun new Monthly Crafting Book Club this year - a challenge to create activities to go along with some of the most beloved children's books.

We've really had some great fun so far this year, just take a look:


January Animal Action Dice Game for the book Barnyard Dance.
February Cause & Effect Box for If You Give a Moose a Muffin.
March - an alphabetical scavenger hunt for Dr. Seuss's ABC.
April handwashing fun to go along with The Piggy in the Puddle.
May 5 Little Monkeys Fold 'Em Up for Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed.
June pinecone princess & Cozy Sweater Warrior Paper Dolls for The Princess and the Pony.
July - lantern craft for Curious George Goes Camping.
August - mini backpacks & dress-a-doll fun for Froggy Goes to School.
September - pumpkin fun for It's Pumpkin Day, Mouse!
October - monster shape-sort bags & other crafts for Have You Seen My Monster?

Now it's November, and each blogger picked a Christmas-themed book for the month.  

We chose Bear Stays Up for Christmas:



This is one of our favorite books to read each winter.  Bear is off hibernating, but his friends wake him up so he doesn't miss out on all the Christmas fun!

The poor guy not only experiences an interrupted nap, but his woodland pals put him to work hauling trees, decorating, and wrapping presents.

He's very dozy throughout the entire experience, but he still stays up (even when his friends pass out on Christmas Eve!)

The book sweetly ends with bear's buddies giving him a quilt so that he'll be extra-comfy as he settles back down to sleep for the rest of the season.

Since I still had quilts on the brain after Gv and I made these to go along with Madeline's Christmas, I decided to keep the quilt theme going and came up with this fun craft (& free printable!) to go along with our book.


This is the finished quilt!


I decided we should make a paper quilt and pulled down some of my fancy Christmas-themed scrapbook paper for Gv to use.


After you cut strips of construction or scrapbook paper into squares and/or triangles, glue them down onto the grid.

I knew it would be easier for Gv to create quilt squares if she had a pattern to glue everything onto, so I created this free printable (click here to get it):


Even though we used scrapbook paper for our quilt, you might want to cut construction paper to use for yours. This free quilt base download includes not only the grid above, but 48 pre-made squares in 12 different colors that you can just cut out and glue down into a unique arrangement.


We cut the strips of scrapbook paper into squares and Gv did so well placing and gluing them, I decided to cut a few into triangles to make it all a bit more tricky and give her some variety.


After all the quilt squares are complete, have your child cut them out and glue them down onto a sheet of construction paper to form the quilt.


Keeping the craft simple was appropriate for Gv at her age now, but when we repeat this craft in the future, I'll probably print off a guide like this (or get some quilting books from the library) and let her recreate some actual quilting patterns.


4 small squares of paper (or 8 triangles) will make one quilt square block.


She had so much fun with this craft - then she trotted off to find a stuffed bear who could enjoy the new quilt!


All comfy and cozy for his long winter's nap!


I love coming up with book connections like this, how about you?  I'd love to hear!  Either leave a comment below or email me at lisahealy (at) outlook (dot) com.


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Check out the other amazing crafts that my fellow bloggers came up with for this month.

Come back next month and see what crafts and activities we come up with for winter. Join our Facebook Group HERE to participate.



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1 comment:

  1. What a fun way to pair an activity with a book. I'm sure your daughter enjoyed making the quilt especially being able to give it to one of her bears. This is such a great way to help kiddos remember stories better.

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