Smiling Train Engine Coloring Page

This engine faces left with a big round face right on the front of the boiler: two dot eyes, curved eyebrows, a small button nose and a wide curving smile. A short funnel sits on top, sending up one cloud-shaped puff of smoke made of soft rounded bumps. Behind the face, the rounded boiler body leads into a boxy carriage with an arched roof and two windows, one narrow and one wider. Underneath the face hangs a rounded skirt shape, like a little cape, and along the bottom sit three large wheels, two of them linked by a straight connecting rod, each with a smaller circle for a hub.

Almost everything here is a big, closed shape, so a child can color the face, the boiler and the carriage roof in broad strokes without worrying about staying inside tiny lines. The wheel hubs and the two windows are the only fiddly bits, which makes a nice change of pace after the large areas and gives a reason to reach for a second or third color. The smiling face also gives you something to talk about while coloring: what color are the train's cheeks, is the smoke gray or white, does each wheel match the others.

There is very little internal detail here, so this sits at the easy end of the vehicle sheets. It works well as a true first train page for toddlers just starting to hold a crayon, and it is quick enough that a preschooler can finish the whole thing in one sitting without losing interest.