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Coloring Sheets at your Fingertips

Coloring sheets can be used in a variety of classroom activities. They can be used to develop language and fine motor skills. Here are some ideas of how to use coloring sheets to improve learning.

Coloring

Coloring sheets are great for placing in learning centers, using after table work, and fine motor fun. LessonPix allows teachers to print many different coloring pages so that students may use specific vocabulary related to the teaching points to select their picture to color.

Class Books

Coloring sheets may be used as a table activity during arrival or in a center that are based on current topics or concepts.

For example, a class read the book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle. Using LessonPix, the teacher created a collection of different foods and selected “Coloring Sheet” under “Create Materials”. The students colored the coloring pages of food pictures that they thought the pipe cleaner class caterpillar might like to eat. The class coloring pages were put together in a book with a small hole cut in each page for the class caterpillar to fit through. The children enjoyed reading and rereading their own version of the very hungry caterpillar!

Individual books

Students may create a book of color pages that tells a story, follows the letters of the alphabet, are related to a theme, or relates to social skills. For example, students may color various characters from a book to make their own character book, such as using pictures of animals in Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Bill Martin Jr. or The Mitten.

Listening Skills

In small groups, a teacher may give specific oral directions to practice listening skills. For example, the teacher may have a coloring sheet of a scarecrow and give specific directions like, “color the shirt red” and “color the pants black”.

Puppets

After students color a picture, they may cut it out with scissors and attach to a paper bag or popsicle stick. These puppets can be used to retell stroies or create new stories.

Sensory Pictures

Student may decorate their coloring page by gluing different textures on the picture. They may “paint” with glue inside the lines and sprinkle sand onto the glue. They may also glue on colored rice, straw, fur, cotton, beans, glitter, etc.

Use glue to trace outside lines. Have students color inside. Teachers or therapists may focus on key concepts like “inside” and “outside” and fine motor skills like staying in the lines.

Paintings

Students may select a coloring page to paint. Teachers may offer a variety of painting options such as painting with watercolor, puffy paint (perhaps to trace), or colored glue.

One idea, is to make snowy day pictures. Select pictures to color of winter themes: perhaps a polar bear or snowman. Cut out the coloring picture before distributing to the students. Have the students glue their picture to a piece of blue construction paper. Then the students can paint using a 50/50 mixture of shaving cream and white glue. This mixture dries puffy- looking like snow. Students may dot puffy snowballs falling from the sky or make a puffy polar bear.

Texture Coloring

Students place their coloring sheet on various textures as they color in the lines. They may place their coloring sheet on cardboard, bubble wrap, sandpaper, denim, etc. Then using the side of a crayon (remove the paper), the students observe as the texture comes through.

Googly Eyes

For added fun, add googly eyes to pictures after they are colored. This may help motivate students who do not like to color. It can also make a child's picture silly and come to life! 

Tips and Tricks

  • Many printers allow the user to print more than one page per sheet of paper. Click the “properties” setting and look for an advanced feature to print multiple pages per sheet or “N-up”. This feature will help save paper and allow the teacher to make smaller individual books and projects.
  • Use the Coloring Sheets with colored pictures to create large "one per page" projects. Just uncheck the "force black/white" checkbox when you're creating your project

Here is a Free Sample of Memorial Day Coloring Sheets

Here is a Free Sample of Pirate Coloring Sheets