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Summer Coloring Pages

Summer coloring pages get printed for a different reason than the rest of the year. Nobody is looking for these on a sunny afternoon — they are wanted on the fourth wet day of a long vacation, in the hour before a late dinner, or at an airport gate. So this set leans toward sheets that work flat on a tray with no other equipment.

The subjects are the parts of summer a small child actually recognizes: a crab on the sand, an ice cream that is already dripping, a kite, a sailboat, a watermelon slice. These are also unusually good coloring subjects because the color is not in question. A child who hesitates over what color a fox should be will fill in a beach ball without stopping.

The page opens with three picture mazes: a sailboat heading for an island, a hermit crab looking for a shell and an ant on its way to a picnic basket.

Print a few before you travel rather than after you arrive. Six sheets and a box of pencils weigh nothing in a bag, need no signal, no battery and no table, and will outlast the tablet on the journey out.

26 pages

Which of these suits my child?

Two year olds
The big single objects: a beach ball, a watermelon slice, one large sun. At this age the appeal of the beach ball is that it is already divided into panels, so a child who cannot yet stay inside a line still produces something that looks like the picture.
Three year olds
Ice creams, crabs and sailboats — two or three parts each, with an obvious color for every part. This is the age when a child starts narrating the picture while coloring it, and a scene with a story in it (a crab walking somewhere) gets more time than an object on its own.
Four and five year olds
The fuller beach scenes are worth it now, and so is the sandcastle with its separate towers and flags. A five year old will happily spend half an hour on one of these, which is exactly the half hour you were hoping to fill.

Every sheet lists the ages it suits, and the 2, 3, 4 and 5 year old pages carry the full range if you would rather start there.

Getting the most out of them

Pack them, do not stream them
A folded stack of these in the front pocket of a bag is the most reliable travel activity there is. Pencils rather than crayons for a car in August — crayons soften and mark everything they touch once the inside of a car passes about 90°F.
A clipboard makes them portable
Most of the places these get used — a picnic blanket, a beach towel, the back seat — have no flat surface. A cheap clipboard turns any of them into a table and is worth more than any other thing you could buy for this.
Color them outside
These are the one set that can go where they are set. Coloring a crab while sitting near actual sand is a better activity than coloring a crab at a kitchen table in February, and it is a rare chance to take the coloring to the subject.

The printing guide covers the scale setting that decides whether a sheet comes out the size it was drawn at, and most of these can also be colored on screen if the printer is out of ink.

Other seasons