Kaboutjie SA Mommy Blogs by Lynne Huysamen
Coloring pages is an awesome and fun activity for children, as well as for adults. Coloring in may seem like it is all fun and games but the truth is that coloring pages provides many benefits for healthy development for kids.
This makes coloring pages an important part of your child’s development and education. If you are looking for some reasons to encourage your child to spend some time coloring pages look no further.
**Disclosure – this post is sponsored by Top Coloring Pages. However the opinions expressed in this post are all my own.**
Here are 10 reasons why coloring pages are vital for your child’s healthy development:
-
Improves Hand Eye Coordination
Hand eye coordination refers to your child’s ability to guide his or her hand guided by vision.
It is so important for a child to develop good hand eye coordination skills and what better way to go about it than coloring pages? Your child will need to learn how to hold the pencil, how to sharpen the pencil and how to color in the lines.
-
Improves Concentration
Now I don’t know what your children are like but mine are like Gummi Bears… on speed. My daughter is all over the place – except when she is absorbed with coloring pages and drawing. She can sit for hours at a time with her pencils.
Coloring pages teaches children to focus and concentrate on the task at hand which is going to be a very important skill needed for their years at school!
-
Improves Handwriting Skills
Long before your child starts writing or even drawing your child will start coloring in. The skills they need for coloring in are going to be the start of your child writing. Your child will need hand strength to start writing and to be able to hold the pencil correctly, as well as the hand eye coordination mentioned above.
-
Improves Fine Motor Skills
Fine motor skills are the small movements that your child makes such as picking small things up between his fingers and holding a spoon.
Coloring pages will help your child to develop good fine motor skills which will help your child in other areas of his or life such as mastering a knife and fork or tying shoe laces.
-
Improves Confidence and Self Esteem
Coloring pages is an excellent activity to boost your child’s confidence and self esteem. Your child will quickly improve at coloring in and every project that is completed will give your child a sense of accomplishment.
-
Boosts Creativity
Your child will use his or her imagination when choosing colors and how to go about making their coloring pages vibrant. Your child will have to think about different color combinations and play around with what they enjoy.
Coloring pages gives your child an amazing way to express himself. You will find your child’s personality shining through in his coloring pages making them uniquely his.
-
Stress Relief and Relaxation
Coloring pages are incredible for stress relief for children as well as for adults. Coloring in is very meditative and calming on the mind while at the same time keeping the mind busy in a creative way.
Coloring pages are just plain fun, they bring enjoyment and increase happiness. Many people, including children, can develop negative habits and coping mechanisms for stress and anxiety. Coloring pages are a great, healthy alternative to help with relieving stress and worries.
-
Increased Knowledge
Coloring pages are a fun and easy way for your child to learn new things. Your child can learn about colors, different shapes, animals, patterns and much more. You can find educational coloring pages to help your child learn about numbers, writing and many more things.
You can get bible story coloring pages to help your child in bible studies and any other topic of interest that your child is learning about at the time.
-
Boundaries and Structure
Learning about boundaries is part of child development and coloring pages teaches youngsters structure with having to follow he rules of coloring in. A child must learn to color in the lines and to keep coloring in the same direction to create a neat and beautiful piece of art.
-
School Preparation
Coloring pages involves pencils and paper, just like school does. Children will be doing written work, essays and tests. Coloring pages lays down a good foundation for your child being familiar with and comfortable putting a pen to paper.
The boundaries and structure that coloring provides will also help them to adjust easier to the structured work that can be expected in school.
So as you can see there are loads of great reasons to get your kids coloring pages. You can even get yourself an adult coloring book and join in the fun with your kids. It will be a great for your own stress relief as well as provide a fun activity for you to bond with your children and spent some quality time with them.
Let your kids have fun when they star coloring in, help them to choose coloring pages that inspire them like their favorite characters, famous people or animals they love.
You can buy coloring books, or you can easily print coloring pages from the internet.
Check out Top Coloring Pages for a wide variety of free coloring pages!
I love coloring with my daugter and we do it almost every day. I read somewhere that you should let a child color pictures the way they want. If they want to color the sky orange and the trees purple you should let them. That is their way of expressing themselves.
Yes I have also heard that @adrilagrange 🙂 I’ve also spent some time coloring with my kids, they love it when I do. I bought myself a lovely adult coloring book and I have found that I really enjoy it, I was surprised since I hadn’t colored in since I was a kid.
@ Adri, I have also heard this, i always encourage him to colour within the lines but choice of colours is his alone.
I wish my child loved colouring in! She will sit for maybe 5 minutes but she really doesn’t enjoy it. I keep hoping that as she gets older she’ll start enjoying it more, but in the meantime it’s play dough all the way lol.
There is nothing wrong with play dough 🙂 It is also a wonderful activity that will also help with creativity, fine motor skills and many more benefits. How old is your daughter?
Don’t forget the younger the child the less time she will be able to sit and concentrate on a task. My daughter is now 6 years old and obsessed with drawing and coloring in, but when she was younger she couldn’t sit for too long.
My daughter loves colouring I am so glad its has all these incredible benefits for her
I’m glad to hear she enjoys it @bongiwembhele 🙂 Now you know to encourage her! Every time it is a special occasion like Christmas or a birthday I buy my kids new pencil crayons, paint or crayons. They love doing anything arty and I truly believe it is so good for them!
My kids love colouring no matter what their ages their creativity is explored even further I always look for different colouring books when shopping and include them in my sunday school lessons
That is excellent @pamkann – I also love getting educational coloring pages or books for my kids. Something my daughter has just started loving is paint/ color by numbers. I’ve also printed out loads of coloring pages for writing and numbers to help my daughter now that she is in Grade 1.
Please share where I can down load and print them as well I have purchased books which help she also loves paint I don’t mind the mess as it keeps her busy and everyday is a learning experience
I loved reading this article.
JD is still a tad too small for coloring in but this is an activity that I look forward to do with him.
We were at the Spur the other day and they gave him a coloring in page and a bucket with crayons. He only drew a few lines and found it more enjoyable to destroy the page and eating the crayons. Eeeek!
I have fond memories of us taking the train down to Beaufort West to visit my grandparents when I was a child. My brother and I had our coloring in books and crayons and my parents played cards.
Even today I still do coloring in as a stress relief. I’ve got a few adult coloring in books and do this when I find the time and if I want to take a few minutes of time-out.
Creativity is such an integral part of my life.
I do hope that JD has inherited this from me.
I can’t wait to share this activity with him.
It is a such a lovely way to connect emotionally, socially and helps create that bond with children.
As you do you find that your communication with the kids gets better . They are able to express themselves through colouring. It is quiet interesting that colour can reveal the state of a child emotionally. I find that it can be an ice breaker before having a decent conversation.
Thank you for sharing. I am very passionate about children.
I am so happy that there are fellow colouring fans around. I was blessed to receive a creative bible for Christmas, and I’ll admit that I LOVE it. My daughter is also infatuated with the current adult colouring books that are all over. It definitely increased her pencil grip and fine motor skills. Thank you for a great article.
What a great invention the adult coloring books are!
Thank you for this article. I spoke to a occupational therapist. She also gave me the advice to let my child draw a picture himself and then colour it in. This helps him to expand his imagination.
I’m very lucky in that all 3 of my rats, I mean children, LOVE to colour in. I love seeing their masterpieces, and having them explain to me what it is that they have drawn or painted. I must say, I never knew that a bird could look like a house, and vice versa!
I have never been a fan of letting children use colouring pages. Maybe because I don’t like staying in the lines
😉. But after reading this article, I have most definitely changed my mind. I would still prefer it if they drew the picture themselves and then coloured it, as this would develop their creativity even more. But I do think a colouring page every now and then could be a good thing.
When i studied Early Childhood Development we were told that colouring in was not good for the child because it hampered their creativity. i thought to myself”What nonsense is this!” I could see the benefits of colouring in. Everything from fine motors skills to creativity! I believe everything you do should be in moderation. I bought my daughter loads of colouring books. That kept her entertained for many hours especially if we had to go to a place that demanded silence eg. church or going to the doctors surgery. Kids will come over and if moms want to have a bit of peace and quiet and have a nice chat with a cup of tea the colouring books are always winners, So in my opinion “Lets raise our cups of tea, to Colouring in”.
That is so strange that you were taught that in your course? I can’t believe that they would be teaching that coloring in is bad?
Well you know what I think since I wrote the article LOL
I also have an ECD diploma and I was taught the same. That’s why I have always thought pictures that children drew themselves and then coloured was the better option. This article has given me a new perspective on the importance of letting children colour in.
I have read the same thing. My interpretation though was that free drawing is more beneficial for younger children in relation to creativity and fine motor skills which they haven’t yet mastered. Whilst coloring a picture is better suited to older children. I want to recall 4 years and older. Thus babies must merely scribble and free draw and older children will benefit from the structure provided and coloring inside the lines.
My nearly three year old gets discouraged when having to color a picture as he wants to color inside the lines but his fine motor skills are still a bit lacking.
My daughter loves coloring and we sometimes color together. Our special bonding time. I find coloring relaxing and helps us both to wind down in the end of a long day.
Went to look at the website and the choices of colouring pages is nice. I was happy to see some characters my children like. The educational ones are nice, I taught my oldest number recognition by printing out the colour by numbers. Love this website I have booked marked it and I can see myself doing some printing for us.
I am wondering about when should I start teaching my daughter numbers and letters. I read that we should not start when they are to young. What is your opinion on that?
At the age of 2 going on 3 the teachers at my sons school focus on fine motor skills such as practising of holding the pen/pencil in the correct position, when he was in the age group of 3 going to 4 he started writing letters and numbers, now he is in 4 going on 5 and has a firm grip on holding of his pencils.
To train the little ones on gripping the pens/pencils there is a good technique that I sued, string and pegs.
I tied it at his level and made him daily as in a play routine peg the pegs on the line, that helps their muscles in their fingers get a firmer grip.
Ronitha I also heard about “special” crayons you can buy to practice the correct grip? Do you know any?
Not crayons, but the school did advise to use a triangle sort of pencil, it quite a thick pencil.
The next step would be cutting with a scissor and I came across training scissors which has 4 places to hold in, so your kid puts in his 2 and then behind that you fit yours in and assist in cutting, I got a pair from Waltons once I saw this and its awesome.
Kids just love cutting everything and anything so it is rather easy to train them.
@adrilagrange we start teaching them from babies when we counting their fingers when playing and showing pictures of apples and reading to them. Learning made fun at a young age is important and in everyday routines are perfect learning opportunities, packing teaspoons away and counting them. Getting age appropriate books to read helps too, there is also a lot of online free resources to use. Also remember each child learns at their own pace and learning is suppose to be fun and not stressful.
Yay just another reason for me to colour in.
I love it and love doing it with my son.
Time to buy some new ones
Wow! This was such an interesting article. I never knew that there were so many benefits to colouring. I am definitely going to start colouring in more with my little ones.
My little one is currently four years old. His attention span is usually short-lived when coloring in. He does show an interest in it and loves all the different colors. I just can’t seem to get him to color in the whole picture. He firmly believes that the picture looks better with a lot of blank spaces and a scribble here and there.
One of his teachers I spoke to said not to take it too seriously. As he is still young and is just fooling around.
I do believe coloring is great therapy for kids (and us adults too!)
I also read once that one can tell a lot about a child’s personality by the way that he colors.
Thoroughly enjoyed this read.
My son and I spend hours colouring in together. Its one of the things that him and I do to spend time together amid our busy life. We turn the TV off, put some music on and sit on the floor if its raining. If its a beautiful day, we pack a picnic and sit outside.
My son is full of energy. He never stops, up until bedtime and even then there is an extra half hour before he crashes. Colouring in helps him to sit, be calm, concentrate.
I agree that colouring in is so beneficial for a child, and done with a parent is such a great way to spend time bonding.
Oh, goodness, thanks for sharing all these incredible benefits Lynne. Who would have thought colouring in would be so beneficial? (FOMO Alert). My almost 5-year-old son is just starting a show an interest now in colouring in. You’ve inspired me to go out and get him some really nice crayons or koki pens. Are there any you recommend in particular? I always loved Colleen Pencil Crayons as a kid but I had a Teacher recommend some special koki’s the other day. I’ll ask her for the name. (Memory’s like a sieve, sorry).
My kids just love colouring in – it is their go to activity and it keeps me sane, especially when they are cooped up indoors in winter. plus it is a great way to keep them occupied when we go on a roadtrip. It is great to see that it really does come with great benefits too.
Love this
Wow I did not know this… I always taught it was just to entertain the kids lol… thank you for sharing
It is good for you too Naomi – so get colouring with your kids 🙂