Coloring pages can provide enrichment by providing pictures of numbers, letters, animals, and words, so that your child will expand their knowledge in a number of areas. Your child will receive the greatest educational benefit when the coloring pages bring all of these elements together, such as when there is a picture of an animal with it's name written on the page, or when numbers are shown with the name of the number written out, or even a two-sided coloring page with one side showing the letter, number or word, and the other side of the page depicting an animal whose shape resembles the letter or number on the previous page. Take for example a coloring page that has a number one, along with a giraffe that is reminiscent of a number one in it's shape. Your child will not only have fun coloring the number and animal, but their lesson will also include writing the number one and being introduced to a giraffe.
Coloring Builds Fine Motor Skills - Perhaps the biggest benefit children get from coloring pages of animals or their favorite cartoon characters is the development of fine motor skills. This includes learning the proper way to hold the crayon, marker or colored pencil they are using to draw with. When supervising young children learning how to color use gentle instructions to encourage them to hold the writing implement near the tip, cradled between the tips of their thumb, index finger and middle finger. Many children grab the crayon in their fist. Correcting this improper usage is an important first step towards real penmanship.
There are so many online printable coloring pages that you can have a blast offering them to your children. Perhaps you don't have children of your own but you often have friends and family that come over with their young ones. You don't want the kids to be bored at your house. Allow them to pick some coloring sheets that you can print for them. Have crayons and other supplies on hand for them and they will feel very welcome in your home. Today most homes have a printer on hand and that makes it fast and easy to use online printable coloring pages. They don't take much ink either so you can find the value is there all the way around. If you don't have a printer at home you can often use those at the local library to print the coloring pages for a very small fee.
Another advantage of coloring pages is that they provide your child with the chance to strengthen their hand eye coordination, as they learn to color in the lines. This skill will develop gradually as they go from struggling to stay inside the lines, to perfecting this fine motor activity. The last benefit I would like to discuss, actually consists of two advantages. Coloring allows your child's creativity to blossom, but it also provides insight into a child's emotions, and often child psychologists will utilize this tool to learn more about a child's feelings or frame of mind at a particular time. This is another great benefit of coloring for children, it can help you to understand how exactly your child feels at any given time. Armed with this new information, don't you feel that providing your child with these powerful learning tools is something that you should do? Coloring pages offer a great way to combine learning and enjoyment for your child.