Fat Bear Week: Add Some Fun to Your Homeschool Day!

Fat Bear Week, an annual event at Alaska’s Katmai National Park, is a perfect way to learn about bears and have FUN in your homeschool.

Homeschooling gives us so much freedom in our days. But it’s easy to get buried in the to-do lists, endless pages of work, and the monotony of it.

When I stumbled upon Katmai National Park & Preserves’ Fat Bear Week (thank you, Twitter!), I had no idea how much it would capture us. Or that it would become a highlight of our year. Or the years to come.

And the fun we had from it helped set the tone for our year of reclaiming the joy of homeschooling.

What in the world is Fat Bear Week?

When you think of bears, what do you think? I think honey (thanks, Pooh!) and winter hibernation (ah, a long, uninterrupted nap!). And that hibernation requires a lot of prep work, in the form of eating so many calories that even a teenage boy would be shocked.

And that is what Fat Bear Week is — a celebration of the success of Katmai’s bears, a healthy ecosystem, and the work of NPS.

In 2014, Katmai park ranger Mike Fitz, inspired by a photo & comment in the Explore.org live chat feed, came up with the idea of voting on which bear was the fattest bear. That year, Fat Bear Tuesday was born. But the overwhelming response encouraged the National Park Service rangers to turn it into a week-long tournament, including a March Madness-style bracket competition.

In 2021, history repeated itself. A one-day completion for the littlest cubs led to a longer bracket competition in 2022.

New! A free download.

Download your free bite-size Fat Bear Week study. This download-and-go unit lays out five days of bear fun.

Do a little, do it all. Activities & ideas complement each other but don’t build on each other, so you can choose just what works for your homeschool.

Learn about the Katmai bears, what & how they grow, where they live, the history of the park, and more.

2025 Fat Bear Week Schedule

So when does it all happen? Good question! That decision varies based on when the bears return, the salmon run, etc. While there isn’t a set week from year to year, you can expect it around the end of September or early October.

Fat Bear Junior competition runs September 18-19 (bracket reveal: Sept 17)
Fat Bear (adults) competition runs September 23-30 (bracket reveal: Sept 22)

Your Guide to Fat Bear Week 2025: September 22 (live discussion)
Hungry Like a Bear: September 24 (live discussion)

All live chat events are hosted on the explore.org live chat channel.
All voting takes place at www.fatbearweek.org

How is the King (Queen) chosen?

Ah, ask this question amongst die-hard fans, and you might just elicit a fight! The short answer is that the public votes for each pairing over five days, and the bear with the highest number of votes is crowned champion.

But nothing is ever that simple on the internet, is it?!

1. Some people vote for the bear that appears to have gained the most weight.
2. Other fans campaign hard for the bear they most like. Fan favorites like Grazer, Holly, 747, and Otis have loyal fans who create campaign posters, (figurative) cheering squads, and, in the case of 2022, even hack the voting system!
3. There are also ‘sympathy’ votes. For example, there was the year Holly adopted another mom’s cub (a rare event) and old Otis, who is patient enough to fish late into the night.

In the end, it’s all in fun. Whatever criteria you use to choose your favorite bear, Fat Bear Week is a great way to learn about bears, Alaska, and more.

(One fan has gotten into the spirit of Fat Bear Week so much that she has created multiple Spotify playlists inspired by the bears, the salmon, and Katmai National Park.)

3 Easy Ways to Learn about Fat Bears (A Bear-Bones Plan)

Maybe you’re hesitant to study fat bears because you aren’t sure your kids will enjoy them. Or maybe your week is just jam-packed. Whatever your reason, here are three simple ways to celebrate the bears without much time investment.

1. Watch the bears on live cameras. Explore.org provides multiple cameras positioned throughout the Brooks Falls area. These solar-powered cameras come on in the summer and will last through the fall.

We love to catch glimpses of the bears throughout our school days. (The TV in our school area, most fall days, is tuned to the YouTube version of the live cam.) It’s the best way to get to know the bears, learn their daily rhythms, and marvel at their progression as the season goes along.

2. Read the newest Bears of Brooks River ebook from the park rangers at Katmai NPS. The park rangers’ passion is evident throughout these books. We frequently reference them throughout the day as we learn to identify the bears we see on the cameras. Written in an easy-to-understand way, these are great for upper-elementary kids and teens.

(Currently, 2022 is the most recent book.)

3. Earn your park ranger badge. Elementary-aged kiddos can earn their Junior Park Ranger, while the Not-So-Junior-Ranger booklet is designed for teens and adults. If a field trip to Katmai NPS isn’t in your plans (ha!), no worries. Pop your completed booklets into the mail & the rangers will send certificates and badges back to you.

A Simple, No-Prep Plan

If you want a little more of those fat bears than in the bear-bones plan, this plan will introduce you to them & help you have a little fun in just 20-30 minutes a day.

Day 1

1. Meet the Bears & fill out your Fat Bear Week brackets.
   
2. For math, find the number of bears that live in Katmai, how many sockeye salmon migrate through Brooks River, the average calories in a single salmon, how many salmon an adult bear will eat each summer, and the average size (pounds & height) of a brown bear at Katmai.
   
3. Choose a video (or two) from this Fat Bear Week playlist on YouTube

Day 2

1. Check yesterday’s winner & vote in today’s pairing.
   
2. For science, create a menu for black bears. (While this activity is designed for 4th graders, it is super-adaptable up & down.)
   
3. Choose a video (or two) from this Fat Bear Week playlist on YouTube.

Day 3

1. Check yesterday’s winner & vote in today’s pairing.
   
2. For geography, locate Alaska, Katmai National Parks, and the river that feeds Brooks Falls.
   
   Then find the nearby villages of South Naknek, Naknek, King Salmon, Kokhanok, Igiugig, Levelock, Egegik, Chignik, and Perryville, where Indigenous people live.
   
3. Learn a bit about the language of the area’s Native Americans.
   
4. Choose a video (or two) from this Fat Bear Week playlist on YouTube.

Day 4

1. Check yesterday’s winner & vote in today’s pairing.
   
2. For language arts, write a letter to the rangers or your favorite bear. It could be a thank you letter, a “why you’re my favorite bear” letter, or even a short recap of what your kiddos have learned. (Mailing addresses are here.)
   
3. Choose a video (or two) from this Fat Bear Week playlist on YouTube.

Day 5

1. Check yesterday’s winner & vote in today’s pairing.
   
2. For history, learn about the purchase of Alaska.
   
3. Play Bear Trivia on Kahoot!
   
4. Choose a video (or two) from this Fat Bear Week playlist on YouTube.
   
5. Make a note in your calendar for mid-September next year to start watching for the new competition.

Fat Bear Week Videos

• Watch the Fat Bear Week playlist on YouTube
• Watch the bears live at Brooks Falls.
  
• Bear Science with Katmai Park Rangers (wind noise makes it hard to hear segments)
• The Life and Death of Bear Cubs Q & A w/Katmai Park Rangers
• Learn to Draw Bears with the Drawn to Explore series

Science Activities

• Inheritance & Variation in Brown Bears
• Create a menu for black bears (from the NPS)
• The Importance of Salmon Subsistence Harvesting
• Learn about the effects that earlier springs are having on hibernation
• Volcanoes & the Great Eruption of 1912
• How Bears Come Out of Hibernation (podcast)
• Alaska Wildlife Curriculum (from Alaska’s Dept. of Fish & Game)

Other Science Topics to Study

• Life cycle of bears & sockeye salmon
• The science of hibernation
• Food chain
• Biotic & abiotic factors in the ecosystem
• Nutrient cycle
• Metabolic process of hibernation
• Keystone species
• Animal mating
• dip netting
• Inherited vs Acquired Traits

Bear-Themed Language Arts Activities

Fat Bear Week doesn’t have to be a science-only activity.

• Fat Bear Week Idioms
• Learn about bears, Alaska, winter, etc., with level-appropriate articles on ReadWorks.
• Write a folk tale on how bears got their noses (from the NPS)
• Send a thank you card to the park rangers. (Free template here, mailing address here.)

• Write a biography, skit, or backstory about your favorite bear.
• Create travel brochures (paper or digital) for Katmai National Park, the Alaskan Peninsula, etc.
• Practice scientific writing to explain the bear science they’ve learned.

Books about Bears

• Grizzly 399 (a Teton NPS bear)
• Finding Winnie
• The Bear Who Heard Crying
• The Bear in the Blueberry

The History & Geography of Alaska

The National Park rangers at Katmai have written two historical ebooks about the region. Witness tells the story of the 1912 volcanic eruption & The Story of a House recounts the discovery and reconstruction of a nearby prehistoric home. Both ebooks are free and include multiple pictures.

• How do you get to Katmai National Park?
• Alaska’s Wild Peninsula
• The WW2 Battle for the Aleutian Islands (a more succinct version)
• Oral histories from Indigenous elders
• A (very!) brief history of Katmai
• Locate the nearby villages of South Naknek, Naknek, King Salmon, Kokhanok, Igiugig, Levelock, Egegik, Chignik, and Perryville where Indigenous people live.
• Why is there a camera blackout every fall?

For the Adults in the Room

No, I’m not suggesting anything inappropriate! But these resources really are more for you to sift through & then share with your kiddos.

• Katmai Bears Wiki pages
• Fat Bear Week Facebook Group (come for the bear photos, stay for the amazing community)
• Fat Bear Week for Educators Facebook Group (new group sharing lots of ideas.)
• At the Heart of Katmai: A history of Brooks River Falls (This free book from NPS is full of great info but definitely not written for kids.)