Hot Air Balloon Coloring Page
About This Coloring Page
The hot air balloon is the one vehicle that is also a pattern. The envelope is divided into wide panels from top to bottom, each one a tall bounded shape sitting next to the last, and the first thing a child decides is what to do with them: all one colour, or two in turn, or every panel different. Each answer is a plan, and saying it out loud is the lesson.
The panels are wide enough for a toddler and the edges between them are narrow enough to matter, so the page works for a two-year-old filling and a five-year-old being careful. The basket underneath is a small woven shape, the ropes between are long straight lines, and the hills, clouds and sun are open shapes for a child who finishes early.
A balloon also starts a conversation that a car or a truck does not: how does it go up, who is in the basket, and where would you fly it? There is no road and no wheel, which is strange enough to keep a four-year-old talking for the rest of the page.
Skills Practiced
How to Use This Coloring Page
- Decide the panels before you start. Every other one, or all different. The plan is the point; the colouring just follows it.
- Follow the ropes down to the basket. Long straight lines with an edge on each side. Stay between them; it is writing without letters.
- Ask how it goes up. Hot air inside. Then ask where it is going, and whose house is on the hill below.