Axolotl Coloring Page
About This Coloring Page
The axolotl is the animal children under eight are currently obsessed with, for the simple reason that it looks like it is smiling and has feathers growing out of its head. Nobody over thirty knew what one was; every five-year-old does. A page that meets a child at the thing they are already excited about does not need selling.
Those feathery gills are the fine-motor part of the page. Three on each side, each one a narrow frond with little branches off it, and colouring them without losing the shape takes more care than the big smooth body does. The body is the easy reward: one long open curve from the head to the tip of the tail.
It is also a genuinely strange animal, and the strangeness is worth a conversation. It breathes through those gills, it lives its whole life underwater, and it can regrow a leg. A colouring page is a calm moment to say so, and children who already love axolotls usually know more than expected.
Skills Practiced
How to Use This Coloring Page
- Count the gills. Three on each side, six altogether. Touch each one as you count — that is one-to-one correspondence.
- Do the gills slowly, the body fast. Narrow fronds first while attention is fresh, then the big smooth body as the reward.
- Ask what the bubbles are. Air, going up. Then ask where the axolotl gets its air. The gills — which is why it needs them.