My Aunt Judy recently visited us from Missouri and got some great time together with our son playing. She has been working with children for many, many years so it is fun to see how she interacts with him :)! On one such occasion, she had actually gotten Eben to color some pictures with her from one of his coloring books. She probably had to wipe off some dust as she got those out because he very rarely, if ever, chooses his coloring books to play with!
However, she did two super simple and creative things with these normal, everyday coloring pages that made all the difference to his engagement. Do you want to know what they are? Of course you do! That’s why you are reading this right?
Coloring Book Activity
Ok, here’s the scoop. She got out our pom poms, googly eyes and glue. They proceeded to color a few pictures together and glued on silly eyes and pom poms for noses. It definitely added a level of fun to regular coloring book pages!
Coloring pages into children’s storybook
But, it didn’t end there. What she did with him next is the best part! She had him make-up a whole story using the pictures as prompts. He had to give names to the characters, extrapolate what they are doing and imagine the rest of the story. She numbered the pages and the section of the story the picture corresponds with. He did several short stories but you could easily make the pages into one long story. I loved it and more importantly, he loved it! He was so proud to read his story with me afterward and I am definitely saving his first “book”.
This coloring book activity can be done with any coloring book (or you can print a lot of pages for free too) and a little imagination. If your kiddos are a bit older, they can write out the story for themselves. I think this is a great summer-time kids activity and I am excited to do this more with my little guy.
Need some new inspiration? Here are some great coloring book options for your kiddos:
What do you think? Do you have any other ideas to share for coloring book activities?