Free printable animal coloring pages have always been a quintessential favorite among children because they are not only fun, but they build creativity and learning all at once. At coloring.center, we have a huge collection of activities for kids that go beyond coloring cute animals. We have printable empathy crafts for kids to have fun while they learn about animals and their emotional and physical environments, fun ways to learn about conservation while teaching empathy for kids, and interesting facts about wildlife too.
For example, by coloring a sad bunny, and discussing adjectives about the bunny's environment while coloring, children can build the ability to empathize while learning information about the habitat. In this article, we discuss explaining animal coloring pages is an educational way for teaching students empathy while learning facts about wildlife using practical ways and links to our printable kindness sets.
The Power of Animal Coloring for Empathy Building
Coloring animals provides a way for children to relate to wildlife and their feelings, and to practically visualize concepts that normally do not come to realization within the social emotional learning category. If a child colors a scared rabbit or happy elephant, they can envision the feelings of that animal, and begin to talk about the animal's feelings, as conversations are built about what the animal is thinking, or how might it feel worried.
This play further enhances them educationally, as research has discussed that locations of creating practice has an increase of emotional intelligence. Each of the printable empathy crafts we have created and offered on coloring.center are fairly simple to complete, and to maintain strong bold outlines that are suitable for ages 3-8. Being an art project, many children are often excited to want to express their care for the animals through coloring and drawing. However, coloring an animal while exploring visual information about the animal's habitat enables children to learn about their responsible action for the animal, providing time for play to become a lesson around empathy as well.
Fun Wildlife Facts to Share During Coloring
Consider incorporating these facts while children are coloring to enhance and deepen their experience. As one example, our animal coloring pages include coloring pages for different animals that can be downloaded or colored online.
- Elephant: Did you know that elephants are the largest land animals and their trunks are like a hand, a nose, and a snorkel? While kids are coloring a family of elephants, talk about how they think and feel when they mourn someone they have lost, we are social creatures, teachers of empathy in how we experience grief together.
- Panda: Pandas will eat anywhere from 20-40 pounds of bamboo a day! They are picky eaters. Color a panda playing around and talk about what endangered means. Ask children, "What sorts of things do you think a panda is feeling when it is alone? How can recycling help keep its bamboo tree forest healthy?"
- Sea Turtle: Did you know that these ancient reptiles will travel thousands of miles to lay their eggs on the same beach where they hatched? While kids are coloring a turtle swimming, talk about the difficulties that it faces with all the plastic present in the environment, along with other things. Ask children, "If the turtle looked scared while it was swimming through the waves, what could we do to make the ocean and environment safer?"
- Lion: The "king of the jungle," the lion lives in prides to help protect them. Color a lion roaring and talking about how pride is built around some of the lions interacting in their Pride to help us all understand the importance of social interaction and bonds. Fun Fact: The young cubs learn to hunt by pretending and playing with each other, we can ask kids to think about how they create their own teamwork from playing together like cubs.
4 Ways to Use Animal Coloring Pages for Learning
Follow the step-by-step instructions for making the most out of building empathy and knowledge with printable empathy crafts:
- Select a Page with a Theme: In order to support a discussion with your child, start out with an animal coloring page free from our wildlife collection on coloring.center. Choose a picture that promotes emotion, like a stranded wolf pup.
- Color and Emotion: As your child colors the picture, ask them about the mood of the animal: "Does the fox look happy or worried? Why?" Have them select color crayons to match them to feelings they think the animals have; for example, blue could relate to a calm feeling, red for an excited feeling. This will help develop their emotional vocabulary.
- Habitat and Helping: Share a fun fact about where the animal lives. Then, let's brainstorm ways to help the animal in that particular habitat. For example, if you have a polar bear on melting ice, have a discussion about conservation: "What can we do to help stop climate meteorological change?". This begins to tie in empathy as well as exploring action.
- Reflection and Sharing: After the coloring page has been colored in, have your child refer back to the page and describe the picture or role-playing how they could help the animal. Finally, make a wildlife gallery to hang up on the wall to promote the learning and discussions you and your child had together.
Benefits for Children and the Earth
Wildlife-themed activities for kids through coloring build cognitive abilities, like paying attention to detail and developing stories, while encouraging character strengths like kindness. Children will also understand the need for conservation and eco-friendly behaviors at an early age. Parents have reported children developing empathy-related qualities after engaging in the activities, since through art there is more distance between kid and the other.
Let's Download and Get Started
Are you excited to learn coloring? Visit coloring.center to download our free, printable empathy crafts with animal coloring pages. You could download the wildlife sets with animals like elephants and pandas, or you could color the animal pages online and have fun instantly.
Each printable and online coloring will make it simple and fun to teach empathy! Embrace showing love to your kids and caring about the world, download today, and empathy will flourish!