Printable Bookmarks for Kids to Color

Here’s a fun DIY school supply kids can do at home or at school if you need a little quiet time activity in the first few days of school. I’ve collected a bunch of printable bookmarks for kids to color that you can share with your class or encourage your kid to do better than flipping the book over to hold it open to the correct page. (Seriously, WHY?)

Cat Themed Bookmarks from College Life Made Easy
50+ Printable Bookmarks from Parties Made Personal on tons of themes from summer treats to monsters, cacti and more — look for your classroom theme here!
Space Themed Bookmarks and reading log from Real Life at Home (pictured)
Scribble and Stitch has 10 sets of printable bookmarks with themes including emojis, food, dinosaurs and adorable animals
For older kids and adults, Hanna Nilson Design has mandala coloring bookmarks
The Craft at Home Family has some cute hand drawn bookmarks you can print and color, which you could also do with kids if you give them bookmark shaped card stock they can draw and color their own designs

Print out a bunch of options or choose a theme and let kids color their own. And then make some time for reading!

[Photo: Real Life at Home]

Growing Up Ladybug and How to Become a Butterfly are both by Stepanka Sekaninova and illustrated by Linh Dao, and they came out at the same time and are on similar themes, so let’s look at them together.

Growing Up Ladybug is narrated by Mariella, a seven-spot ladybug. She talks about the parts of a ladybug, where they live, different kinds of ladybugs, why humans love them, their defenses against predators and the life cycle of a ladybug.

The drawings are cute if not always scientifically accurate, it’s not in such a way that’s likely to confuse kids (who probably already know that ladybug mamas don’t push their larval babies around in strollers, for instance.

It’s a good general description of the life cycle of a lady bug and why we like having them around.

About the book: 32 pages, hardcover. Published 2026 by Albatross Media. Suggested retail price $16.95.

Similarly, How to Become a Butterfly covers the life cycle of a butterfly, starting with caterpillars eating burning nettle leaves. (Here Amanda is the narrator.) The book talks about a few of the more than 18,000 daytime butterflies in the world as well as other creatures that live in the meadow (there’s that ladybug again, along with crickets, bees and other bugs).

It also covers some of the enemies of caterpillars like wasps and spiders, and the defenses that caterpillars use to try to prevent being eaten. It illustrates how caterpillars grow and change as they molt and prepare to pupate, and what a caterpillar looks like before and while it is forming its chrysalis. And while the book uses the word metamorphasis it doesn’t really talk about what happens between the caterpillar forming a chrysalis and the butterfly hatching.

This butterfly is a peacock butterfly, and once it hatches the book covers the parts of a butterfly and the life cycle. It also talks about nocturnal moths (though it says nocturnal butterflies are “usually called moths” when moths are actually a different species) and what butterflies do at night.

I’m maybe a little hard on this book because my daughter is a butterfly expert from way back, but it is still cute and good for the very basic basics of the butterfly life cycle.

Both books would be fun additions to your bookshelf for younger kids starting to learn about different animals or who have an interest in insects.

About the book: 32 pages, hardcover. Published 2026 by Albatross Media. Suggested retail price $16.95.

Have you read?

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