Emperor Penguin Colouring Page

This page has just one penguin, standing straight and facing forward, filling the middle of the sheet. The top of its head dips into a soft heart shape where the dark cap meets the white face, and below that sit two round eyes and a small curved smile. The body is one large oval belly, with a flipper hanging down on each side and two oval feet planted at the bottom. There is no ice, no snow and no background at all — the whole page is this one penguin on plain white.

That makes it a good page for a child who is still working out how to stay inside a line. The belly is the biggest space on the sheet, so it is the natural place to start and forgiving if the crayon wanders. The flippers and feet are smaller closed shapes but still simple ovals, so a child can give the body one colour and the belly, flippers and feet others without much trouble. It is an easy page to talk over too — where the black part ends and the white part begins, how many feet the penguin has, why its arms look like paddles.

Because the lines are thick, the shapes are few, and there is no background to fill, this sits at the easy end of the colouring sheets in the polar animals set. It suits a two- or three-year-old colouring largely for the first time, and it will feel quick and light for a four- or five-year-old, who might want a busier page with more going on around the penguin.