Since polar bears often live near the water and spend a great deal of time out at sea, you will need to create some water for your habitat. To create the water part, simply pull out a few blue sheets. Spread these sheets out in your habitat area before constructing the other parts. Old blue sheets found at the thrift store work well for this project.
Polar bears live in the coldest regions of the planet, mainly north of the Arctic Circle to the North Pole. Some are also found near Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Norway and Russia. In these chilly areas of the world, you will find sea ice, which acts as the platform where the polar bears live and hunt. To create this part of the habitat, cut out large, irregularly shaped pieces of flattened cardboard. Have your preschoolers sponge paint the cardboard pieces white and gray. You can also tear random pieces off of Styrofoam sheets and place them around the area to act as broken-off chunks of sea ice.
Since the sea ice also contains plankton and micro-organisms, it sets up an entire ecosystem that is ideal for polar bears. The seals in the area eat the plankton and micro-organisms and the polar bears eat seals. You can share the latter information with the preschoolers or you can simply include the fact that seals also live in the area around the sea ice. Place a few stuffed seals around your habitat. Have the kids draw a few fish on the blue "water" sheets with washable markers or create some fish by cutting shapes out of cardboard and coloring them. You could also have the kids include some drawings of what they think plankton looks like on the sea ice.
Although polar bears don’t den and hibernate like other types of bears, some females use a den for part of the year. Pregnant polar bears often dig into deep snowdrifts to create a den for protection and insulation, according to National Geographic. Pregnant mothers will enter the den between October and December, have their babies and emerge with their cubs around late February to April, according to the National Wildlife Federation. Use a sturdy cardboard box as the den. Lay the box on its side so the open top section is facing toward you. Spread polyester pillow filling around the top and two sides of the box. To finish it off, you could place two small stuffed polar bears in the den.