Celebrating Coloring Book Day with Printable Coloring Pages

August 2 is National Coloring Book Day in the United States, and while every day is a good day to color, this is a great time to break out the crayons, colored pencils and printable coloring pages (especially since it’s so hot in a lot of the United States/Northern Hemisphere right now!).

Did you know The McLoughlin Brothers, a New York publishing firm, is credited as the producers of the first coloring book? Their The Little Folks Painting Book came out in 1879 and continued to produce coloring books for kids until 1920, when it became part of the Milton Bradley Company (thanks for that tidbit, Wikipedia!).

While many coloring books through the years have targeted kids, we know adults love coloring, too, and you can find published coloring books on just about any subject, from pop culture to animals, mandalas and more.

If you want to make your own coloring book from printables, it’s easy to do, because there are so many free printable coloring pages out there on just about every subject you can think of. A few examples I found on Pinterest:

Butterfly coloring pages from Little Moon Paper Company
Kawai style pages of all types from Mofukawa (the llama above is from there)
Turtle coloring pages from Easy Peasy and Fun
Watermelon coloring pages from Printabulls

Or check out all the options at sites like Coloringoo, Cool2BKids, Crayola, Printable Free Coloring, Super Coloring, Just Color or Coloring.ws to name a few. We printed so many coloring pages from these sites when my daughter was younger and would come at me with specific requests for what she wanted to color.

Did you know that Canva also has coloring pages? If you already pay for the service or are willing to pay for coloring pages, you can find some fun options there to make your own coloring book. You can also use simple shapes from their library or even add your own drawings. (Here’s how to make a coloring book in PicMonkey, too.) So many fun options!

Next Plan Idea:

Learn about American Samoa for Kids

I’m in deep denial about the fact that new year is almost upon us again! It’s been the fastest and the longest year at the same time, and I can look back and see some good things as well as some things I wish had gone differently.

Doing a year in review with your kids — whether in the classroom or at home — is a good way to capture some of their memories and the things they really liked about the year gone by.

There are a lot of different printable year in review worksheets you can use if you want to make this super easy. Here are links to a few (often part of larger posts about NYE celebrations with kids that are worth a read, too):

Teach Beside Me has lots of fun printables fro the end of the year, including a year in review that covers favorite memory, funniest memory and the best book they read, among other topics.
NurtureStore‘s version has space for a self-portrait and prompts like favorite toy, best day out this year and future dream job.
Remember favorites, their “best idea” of the year and have room for setting goals for next year with this one from The Keele Deal.
The year in review from Yes We Made This has room for drawing or writing and includes things like something they learned, a memory they made and a place they visited.

Of course you could pretty easily make your own year in review for the whole family to do that asks questions based on what you most want to remember. (Favorite video game? Best friend? Favorite family memory?)

And if after the year in review you’re ready to look ahead a bit, Mrs. Merry has new year’s resolution printables to inspired kids to look ahead and set goals for things they want to try. You can totally fill this one out as a grownup, too.

[Photo: Mrs. Merry]

Next Plan Idea:

Have you read?

Leave a Reply