Coloring Activity For Toddlers: Do It Now Or Later? - The Teaching Aunt

Coloring activity for toddlers? Is it possible?

Crayons and colored pencils are a staple in every preschool classroom.

And I’m 99.99% sure that a household with a toddler living in it has these coloring materials, too!

The question is: When should coloring be introduced to children?

As a professional, I believe that coloring CAN be introduced to children as early as toddler years.

Notice the emphasis on the word can?

Letting a toddler tinker with crayons would benefit his/her fine motor skills.

As your child takes control of the crayon, he/she is unknowingly strengthening his/her hand and wrist muscles.

But I think it is important not to force the idea of coloring to toddlers.

Exposing them to crayons or colored pencils is already a mighty step. Asking them to actually color is still not in the picture at this point.

Seb was barely 12 months old when we first introduced him crayons. At that time, we just wanted him to be familiar with the material. We definitely didn’t expect anything from him except hold the crayons, look at them and NOT EAT them. 😛

Oh, and we also gave him papers! Just in case.

We surely don’t want him to write and color the walls. Yikes!

But aside from that, we did nothing else. We just let him scribble on the paper and just enjoy the crayons. We did remind him not to munch on the crayons, though. 🙂

Coloring activity for toddlers is a pre-academic activity, so as much as possible we want Seb to have a fantastic experience of it so he would have a positive concept of school.

So for now, while he’s still developing his hand and wrist muscles, we would gladly settle for intersecting lines, parallel lines, loops and circles.

And we’ll show it to him when he’s already 18. And if he still draws the same way, we’ll judge him to the moon and back!  😛

Teacher’s Advice:

Coloring can be introduced as early as toddler years.

Provide papers so your child would learn the idea that they are supposed to write on it and not on the walls (or anywhere else for that matter!)

Is your toddler already doing coloring activities? How is it? I’d love to hear your stories. <3

You can also read this article about other great fine motor activities for your toddlers. 

Oh, and please visit my Free Printable Page for more!

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Happy learning,

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