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15 Best Free Printable Coloring Pages for Kids
Tom Gerencer
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April 6, 2020
You love your kids, but having them in the house all day can be stressful at times, especially when they’re bored. And when they’ve torn the family room apart for the 10th time, putting them on tablets or TV for hours at a time isn’t always the best choice. Coloring to the rescue! It builds fine motor skills, self-expression, grip, and focus. And it’s fun, too!
We’ve scoured the web to find the 15 best free printable coloring pages sites for kids of all ages. Our picks are ink-friendly and deliver high educational value along with entertainment for pre-K through middle school and even for those hard-to-impress high schoolers. We’ve even found some for Mom and Dad.
1. DLTK’s coloring pages for kids
Ages: Pre-K, elementary school
Subjects: Everything from letters and numbers, to origami, to Pokémon, to literature, and more
When it comes to free printable coloring pages for children, DLTK’s coloring pages for kids are head-of-the-class. They’ve got a mammoth selection of fun alphabet and number sheets, plus hundreds of animal sheets. They also have sheets for birthdays, cartoons, fantasy, music, nature, rainbows, school, space, video games, and more.
This site was put together by a mom as a way to keep her daughters busy. Plus, the outlines are thin, so ink use stays at a minimum.
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2. HP Print, Play & Learn
Ages: Pre-K, elementary school, middle and high school, adult coloring
Subjects: Math, science, reading, robots, seasonal, sports, and more
Of course, you’d expect the world’s #1 maker of innovative printers to come through with a selection of fun, free printable coloring sheets. But you may be surprised by the vast curated list of the most popular sheets from every corner of the web on HP’s Print, Play & Learn site.
Sortable by creator, age group, activity, and category, this easy-to-use resource provides coloring, crafts, puzzles, and even learning worksheets.
3. Super Coloring Pages
Ages: Pre-K, elementary school, some middle and high school, some adult
Subjects: Math, science, reading, puzzles, places, and more
With a different slant on coloring pages, Super Coloring doesn’t just serve up the blank printables. Its massive selection of 48,281 coloring sheets and counting comes with drawing tutorials (how to draw Anna from Frozen!), foldable paper crafts, printable puzzles, and more for hours of focused fun. Print alphabet, animals, math, characters, and thousands more.
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4. Top Coloring Pages
Ages: Pre-K, elementary school
Subjects: Sports, nature, Minecraft, cartoons, and more
Top Coloring Pages has a wide selection of every kind of coloring sheet, from animals to athletes, Minions to motorcycles. They focus mostly on popular culture in cartoons, movies, TV shows, and video games, so their educational section is a little thin. These sheets also tend to be a bit more ink-intensive than the others in our list, so make sure your printer has plenty of ink on reserve.
5. Languages, math, and more from Education.com
Ages: Pre-K, elementary school
Subjects: Math, coding, science, reading, languages (Spanish, Hindi, Chinese, French), and art
For educational coloring pages for kids, Education.com's free Learning Library has an A+ selection of age-appropriate printables. It’s organized from pre-K to 5th grade as well as by subject, so you can browse through sheets for math, reading, writing, science, emotions, and connect-the-dots. The site mixes in online learning games like coding challenges and web-based quizzes, too.
6. Educational free printables from Carson Dellosa
Ages: Pre-K, elementary school, middle and high school
Subjects: Math, science, reading, Spanish, puzzles, games, and more
From history to Spanish to science and from pre-K through 8th grade, Carson Dellosa offers hundreds of free printables to make school-at-home easier. Their sheets are a bit lighter on the coloring and fun, and a bit heavier on the education. Find classroom stories, reading comprehension, know-your-letters sheets, math, science, STEM, and social studies. It’s also a bit more ink-intensive than some of our other picks.
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7. Code Wizards printable pages for kids
Ages: Elementary school
Subjects: Coding
Give your little computer whiz a break from screen time with 7 free printable coding activities from Code Wizards. Does learning to code sans-computers seem a little backward? Actually it makes perfect sense, since it builds your kids’ analytical and problem-solving abilities while it gives their eyes a rest. The set includes kid-friendly favorites like coding crossword puzzles, word search, and ASCII and algorithm education sheets.
8. Spanish ABC Coloring Pages from Mr. Printables
Ages: Elementary school
Subjects: Spanish
From abeja to zapato, your little Spanish student will find hours of fun coloring in letters of the Mr. Printables alphabet sheets with pictures. There are options for both uppercase and lowercase, and the pictures are ink-friendly, with thin lines that won’t leave your printer with that empty feeling. Keep your kids busy around the casa until they leave the nido again. These PDF coloring pages are easy to download and print.
9. K-12 Math Worksheets
Ages: Elementary school, middle and high school
Subjects: Math
K-12 Math Worksheets has a huge selection of math coloring games and puzzles for everything from 2 + 2 through decimals, geometry, and fractions. You won’t find quadratic equations here, but they do have printable graph paper in several sizes so you can plot your own. They have fact families, factors, multiples, rounding, ratios, and telling time, too. The simple addition and subtraction drawings are packed with animals and rainbows, and the artwork is fantastic.
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10. Homeschool Printables for Free
Ages: Pre-K, elementary school, middle and high school
Subjects: Math, science, reading, puzzles, critical thinking, and more
No mere coloring site, Homeschool Printables for Free has middle school through high school resource packs on choosing a career, research paper writing, programming, geometry, geography, and dozens of other subjects. Don’t be fooled by the “add to cart” button; the pages are all free.
The Dr. Seuss Fun Pack for Middle School has word searches, decoder messages, and a fun battleship game. The Printable Apple Math Pack has 120 pages of math fun from pre-K through middle school.
11. Science Printables from Classroom Doodles
Ages: Elementary school, middle school
Subjects: Science
Energy, scientific method, seasons, the solar system, biology, astronomy, chemistry, and more! Engage your little genius with imagination-fueling Classroom Doodles science coloring pages on the weather, water cycle, and everything under the sun and moon. Junior Einsteins won’t just color sheets like the fun “Experiment” or “Hypothesis” pages. They’ll want to hang these colorful inspiration-starters on their walls and doors as fuel for future dreams.
12. Advanced coloring pages for older kids from HelloKids
Ages: Middle and high school, adult
Subjects: Art; drawing and coloring
Is your junior shut-in past the ABCs and 123s and on to something a bit more challenging? Go for broke with mind-bending original artwork from HelloKids. The site also has characters from movies like The Incredibles, Coco, and Star Wars, plus Barbie pages, superheroes, animals, and taxing mandalas that’ll even give Mom and Dad a run for their money. It boasts nature, animals, famous personalities, video games, and dozens upon dozens of other categories.
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13. Biology coloring sheets from Arizona State University
Ages: Upper elementary school, middle and high school, adult
Subjects: Science
Precocious elementary schoolers and pre-college kids alike will love ASU’s Ask a Biologist coloring site. These 54 individual pages and multi-page comic books offer everything from a whimsical yo-yo wielding skeleton to an 11-page colorable comic book about how pathogens can make you sick, and what you and your body can do about it. There are sheets for Mendel’s peas, insect life cycles, anatomy, animals, biomes, cell diagrams, and more.
14. Crayola coloring pages
Ages: Pre-K, elementary school, middle and high school, adult
Subjects: Math, science, reading, puzzles, places, and more
Nobody knows coloring like Crayola, so naturally their free coloring pages for kids make the list. Find thousands of sheets for Disney characters, holidays, animals, plants, the alphabet, math, and more.
They’ve got good science and social studies picks for older students, too. There are even some solid make-and-play sheets that let them turn their drawings 3D. Crayola’s pages do tend to go a little heavy on the ink, so keep that in mind when you start printing.
15. Coloring 4 Kids
Ages: Pre-K, elementary school, middle and high school, adult
Subjects: Math, science, reading, puzzles, places, and more
If you're looking for a massive selection, the Coloring 4 Kids free printable coloring pages site is worth a look. It’s got a great alphabet collection, plus dozens of animals from wolf to tiger to rhinoceros to lobster to keep preschool and elementary kids occupied. There are also birthday sheets, car logos, dinosaurs and dragons, Disney, LEGO, and nature pics.
Does your little artist like space, UFOs, or Manga best? They’ve got those, too. The outlines are a bit heavy, which means more ink use. There are some fun pages for adults and almost-adults, too.
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What to look for in free printable coloring pages for kids
Free coloring pages are a fun way for kids to work on something constructive while giving you a break. But not just any sheet downloaded off the internet will do. Take a look at a few features to consider before you click “print.”
- Ink conservation: If you’ll be printing lots of coloring sheets, the #1 concern is that they’re ink-friendly. Look for pages with thin lines and without excessive black on the page. The options higher on our list of 15 websites use the least ink. Pro tip: Set your printer to draft mode to save ink.
- Fun: The best printables are fun, fun, fun, which means kids will love them, spend more time on them, and ask for more each day. Does your kid like Disney characters? Marvel? Or are they into sea turtles or caracals? Maybe they like astronomy or math best. We’ve got sheets for each of your creative tykes in our list.
- Educational Value: Coloring is fun, but in a stay-at-home situation, making sure Kasey and Steven keep learning can be vital. Look for math, language arts, social studies, history, science, STEM, and more in the 8 educational options in our list above.
- Age match: For preschool-age kids animals, ABC sheets, and simple addition pages work best. For elementary school students, look for more challenging coloring sheets like mandalas, Marvel characters, and educational sheets. Matching by age ensures more time spent.
- Challenge: “I’m bored” is not what you want to hear five minutes after coloring begins. Choose printable coloring pages with enough challenge to keep your little ones engaged and working. Match sheets to their interests so they forget to ask how much longer.
In conclusion
Working, cleaning, or making lunch or dinner can be a challenge when Isabel and Emily are home from school. Keep the peace while providing fertile ground for young minds to grow and learn with free printable coloring pages for kids.
Look for ink-friendly sheets that challenge them and cater to their interests. The coloring pages in the list above include the best picks on the web for ABCs, math, geometry, science, biology, Spanish, and even computer programming.
About the Author: Tom Gerencer is a contributing writer for HP® Tech Takes. Tom is an ASJA journalist, career expert at Zety.com and a regular contributor to Boys' Life and Scouting magazines. His work is featured in The Boston Globe, Costco Connection, FastCompany, and many more.
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