Four ways to keep your preschooler busy with colouring.   

BY HEJIRA CONVERY, KINDICARE

JULY 3, 2025

Whether your under-five scribbles all over the page, or manages to stay mostly inside the lines, colouring is a great activity in the early years.  

Using a crayon, texta or pencil helps to hone your child’s fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination; and there’s deep thought involved as they focus on different colours, shapes and themes, while letting their creativity loose.  

As a parent, it’s also nice to know that colouring has a very low barrier to entry! 

It takes a nanosecond to whip out a colouring sheet or book, then clean up at the end.  

And colouring is a particularly great activity if the weather’s sketchy, you’ve got some time to fill, or your little one just needs a quiet, contemplative reset.  

So, where to start? 

Well, there are stacks of different colouring designs and formats to choose from, and here are four ways to roll out a rewarding colouring activity for your preschooler: 

1. Invest in a colouring book (or three)  

You’ll find lots of different options at your local bookshop, $2 shop or art supply store, and whether your little one loves dinosaurs, princesses or things that go zoom, you’ll find a colouring book that lines up with their interests.  

There are also some great options for your Bluey, Peppa Pig or Ms Rachel fan.  

The Bluey: Super Mega Colouring Book is hot off the press, and it contains 128 colouring pages for kids of all ages.  

The Peppa Pig: Peppa’s Super Bumper Colouring Book is also pretty new (just like little Evie Pig), and it’s full of easy-to-colour designs.  

While the 192-page Ms Rachel: My First Colouring Book is packed with edutainment value!  

Ms Rachel is a passionate educator (as well as a YouTube megastar), so there’s playful learning on every page, and so many different activities for your tyke to tackle.  

2. Print off some colouring sheets 

If you’re feeling thrifty, there are plenty of fun and free printables available online, and Crayola’s colouring pages are a great place to start.  

You can check out Twinkl too, which has lots of free printable colouring sheets for early learners. 

Canva also has some good options, with colours, shapes, numbers and first words all covered.  

And if you’re looking for more Bluey fun and games, there are several colouring sheets you can download one-by-one.   

3. Make your own! 

You don’t have to be a professional illustrator to create a colouring page for your preschooler.  

All you need is a black marker pen (thick or thin), a bit of paper, and an idea! 

It’s easy to draw the outline of a tree, house, train or tropical vista, which your little one can then colour in. 

And if you’re a talented drawer, you might like to put together a whole book of designs for your preschooler to colour and keep.  

4. Get a reusable colouring mat 

This is a great idea if you want to reduce your single-use paper count, and Scribble Mat is one brand that makes brilliant ‘colour, wipe, clean and repeat’ silicone mats.  

They have lots of preschooler-friendly designs, which come with dry-erase coloured pens and a felt storage pouch for easy pack-up.   

Hey Doodle also has some great colouring mats for little learners, designed around themes like animals, fruit, vehicles and space.  

They make reusable colouring books as well, and their Glow-in-the-Deep mats are new and amazing (if you’re lucky enough to snag one).  

All in all, colouring is an easy and educational activity for young children, and it’s fun for grown-ups as well.  

So, feel free to pull up a chair alongside your little one, and get creative with a design of your choice!