Online coloring pages? My mom would not be pleased...If my mom knew about online coloring pages, she'd be horrified!
She thought coloring books stifle creativity. I'm not sure they were as bad as she thought. They help with eye-hand coordination. Your child learns to hold a writing utensil as well. (Help him or her do so properly, okay?) But what does your child gain from coloring on the web? How to point. How to click. That's it! Oh yeah: they also get to spend more time with My Little PonyŠ and BatmanŠ. Whoop-de-do. Free online coloring books work like this... Your child is presented with an uncolored coloring book page, along with a smattering of color squares. The kid clicks a color, clicks a portion of the picture, and voila! Now that segment of the picture is the color your kid picked. Sure, it looks better than their own scribbled coloring. The software prevents them from going outside the lines. So what? A baby could have "colored" the same image by rolling over on the mouse! Free online coloring pages: free for a reason Most of the free online coloring pages feature an obscene amount of pop-ups! My two pop-up blockers couldn't compete; some of the advertising still got through. Naturally, many of the sites also feature flashing ads all over the free online coloring screen. Leave your kid on the computer and you might end uphaving ordered a thousand anchovy and onion pizzas! Yes, online coloring pages cost nothing. Yes, they keep your child busy. But your child is going to spend quite enough of the rest of his or her lifetime in front of a screen, be it computer or television. Do you really need online coloring pages to be part of the mix? Online coloring page alternatives If you're intent on coloring, there are some free coloring pages on the net that print out. Printable coloring books make sense. Mom can pick and print the picture blanks, and child can work on the small motor skills that were the original reason for coloring books, before the World Wide Web began using them as advertising vehicles. Three choices for printable online coloring pages Choice #1) What does your child like to draw? (Let's say a log cabin.) Type printable coloring pages in quotes. Type log cabin in quotes. Search. Along with some irrelevant stuff, you should have some log cabin outlines to choose from. Time to print! Choice #2) Visit Free Coloring Pages - printable online coloring. Click Printable Coloring Pages, NOT online coloring. Now select a picture! (By the way, if you're looking for solo activities for your child, the popular children's magazines are full of them!) Choice #3) Check out online coloring pages at National Geographic. Most of the links and ads are for either the grown-up National Geograph or for the kids' magazine. There's info on the animals depicted, and the pictures can be printed. Your rhino-obsessed child could color a rhino and then watch a one minute rhino video. In my opinion, all of these options beat online coloring pages. Computer art-making alternatives Doesn't your computer have a drawing program your child could experiment with. Mine does. Put your child on that and he or she will learn a lot more computer skills than from online coloring pages. With my Windows XP, I find the basic program under All Programs > Accessories > Paint Or, to take computer drawing programs one level up, check out KidPix. KidPix is a computer drawing program for children that will blow your (and your kid's) mind. It's about a thousand times more creative and intensive than online coloring pages. I love it so much I've devoted a page to it: Kidpix computer drawing software A literary spin on coloring Instead of free online coloring, what about free online reading and coloring? We're supposed to be reading to our young children. Right? A lot. Usually we read picture books. But what if the picture books had no pictures? Your kid could draw the pictures the text inspires. No "staying inside the lines" required. The web has tons of free children's books...
There are probably as many free books as free coloring pages. Same idea: Surround the useful stuff with lots of ads. So if you'd like your child to have a great coloring and reading experience... If you think it'd be fun to read to your child a book that your child has actually illustrated... Then search Free Children's Books in the search box above. Or... Visit the free kids' books we have on this site! Or heck, here's one final option: write a book for your child to illustrate. Do you think you can do it? I do. That's why I wrote a whole page telling you how. It'll take some effort, but it'll be a lot more rewarding for both you and your child. More on Coloring Books.
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