Airplane Coloring Page
About This Coloring Page
Aeroplanes are the vehicle children see most often and understand least. A car they have sat in and can explain; a plane is a shape that goes over the house and makes a noise. Drawing one is one of the few chances a three-year-old gets to look at it slowly and find out where the parts are.
This is a propeller plane rather than a jet, on purpose. The propeller is a moving part a child can see the point of — it spins, and that is what pulls the plane along — where a jet engine is a smooth tube that explains nothing. It also gives the page a spiral to colour, which is the only shape on the sheet that is neither a circle nor a straight line.
Clouds are the other half of the page and they are the forgiving half. There is no wrong way to colour a cloud, no edge that matters, and no detail to get right, so a child who has just done something fiddly with the propeller has somewhere easy to go next. Alternating hard and easy areas is most of what keeps a young child at a sheet.
Skills Practiced
How to Use This Coloring Page
- Find the parts and name them. Wing, tail, propeller, window. Four words, and the plane stops being one shape.
- Do the propeller in a spiral. Following the curve with the pencil rather than filling it in. It is the closest a still drawing gets to showing movement.
- Use position words for the clouds. Above, below, behind. A sky is the easiest place to practise them because nothing is touching anything.