About these bear coloring pages
Bear coloring pages have something for every age: a chubby cuddly bear for toddlers, a panda munching bamboo, a polar bear on the ice, a brown bear catching fish in a river or a mother bear with her cubs in the forest. Bears are big, round and gentle-looking on paper, so they are easy to color and fun to make your own. Our free bear pages go from a single round teddy-style bear with thick lines to detailed forest and arctic scenes with thick fur, trees and snow for older kids and adults.
Every page is a free printable for US Letter or A4, with no account and no watermark, and you can color any of them online with a tap-to-fill brush. Choose a panda for a black-and-white page that is quick to finish, a polar bear for practicing light blues and greys, or a brown bear family for a cozy woodland scene.
Why bears are great to color
Bears are built from big, soft shapes: a round head, small round ears, a big body and thick legs. Those shapes are easy for little hands, and a toddler can fill a whole bear with brown and feel finished quickly. Many children sleep with a stuffed bear, so a bear page often becomes a portrait of a favorite toy.
Bears also make a good lesson in how animals live in different places. Polar bears live on Arctic sea ice, pandas in the bamboo forests of China, and brown and black bears in the forests and mountains of North America, Europe and Asia. Coloring them side by side is an easy way to talk about snow, forests and what each bear eats.
The eight kinds of bears
There are eight species of bear in the world. Each one has a look that is easy to copy on a page.
Most are some shade of black or brown, so the small markings are what tell them apart: a chest patch, pale eye rings or a light snout. Kids enjoy finding these clues and adding them last.
- Brown bear: brown fur and a hump of muscle on its shoulders
- American black bear: often black, but can be brown, cinnamon or even cream
- Polar bear: white-looking fur and a black nose
- Giant panda: white with black ears, eye patches, legs and shoulders
- Sun bear: the smallest bear, with a golden patch on its chest
- Asiatic black bear: black with a white V-shaped mark on its chest
- Sloth bear: shaggy black fur and a long, pale snout
- Spectacled bear: from South America, with pale rings around its eyes like glasses
Bear facts to share while you color
- A polar bear's skin is black, and its fur is not really white: each hair is clear, and it looks white because it reflects light.
- Giant pandas eat mostly bamboo and spend many hours a day eating it.
- A newborn giant panda cub is pink, almost hairless and weighs only about 100 grams (3.5 ounces).
- Pandas have an extra thumb-like bone in each wrist that helps them hold bamboo stems.
- Bears have an excellent sense of smell and use it to find food from far away.
- Many brown bears and black bears sleep through the winter in a den, and their cubs are born there.
- The spectacled bear is the only bear that lives in South America.
- The koala is not a bear: it is a marsupial, an animal that carries its baby in a pouch.
Which bear page for which age
- Toddlers (2–3)
- Easy pages with one round bear, small ears and thick lines. One brown crayon, plus black for the nose, is all they need.
- Preschool (3–5)
- A bear with honey, a fish or a balloon, or a panda with bamboo. Count the cubs and name the colors together.
- Kids (5–10)
- Bear families in the forest, polar bears on the ice and pandas in bamboo groves. Good for practicing backgrounds.
- Teens and adults
- Detailed bear portraits with thick fur and woodland or arctic scenes, made for colored pencils and layered shading.
Coloring tips and color ideas
- For fur, use short strokes in the direction the fur grows, and layer a darker brown over a lighter one.
- Polar bears are not pure white: use pale cream, light grey and a little blue in the shadows, and leave white where the light hits.
- For a panda, color the black parts first: ears, eye patches, legs and the band over the shoulders.
- A lighter brown on the snout and inside the ears makes a brown bear look more real.
- Color the nose black with a tiny white shine dot, and the same for the eyes.
- Finish with a background: green pines for a forest bear, blue ice for a polar bear, green bamboo for a panda.
Ideas for home, school and parties
- Teddy bear picnic: kids bring their stuffed bears and color a bear page that looks like their own toy.
- Classroom habitats: color a polar bear, a panda and a brown bear, then glue each one onto a map where it lives.
- Winter lesson: color a bear in its den and talk about which animals sleep through the cold months.
- Zoo visit: print the bears you will see and compare their colors with your pages afterward.
- Turn a photo of your child's favorite teddy bear into a coloring page: upload it and Coloriki traces it in seconds.
How to print bear coloring pages
- Open the page you like and press Print it. A PDF opens, sized for US Letter; the A4 PDF is next to it.
- In the print window choose "Fit to page" or 100% scale, and plain white paper. Thicker paper (100 to 120 gsm) is better for markers and paint.
- Print a few copies: kids like to try different colors on the same picture.
- Prefer screens? Press Color it online and color with a tap on a phone, tablet or computer.