Town Colouring Page
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Three p.m. After a full day of working, playing, feeding, cleaning, sorting out hissy fits and scuffles, three p.m. is the time I mentally and physically need a break. I need a cup of tea. My ears need some peace and quiet.
While my youngest two are usually asleep for their afternoon nap; three p.m. means nothing to my twin preschoolers. If anything, their need for activity and noise peaks at three p.m.
Dear readers, I am here to tell you of the wonders a colouring page and water paints can achieve at three p.m.
Town Colouring Page
What can we expect as children get started with colouring?
By the time a child is 4, he or she should be able to colour within the lines and no more than 0.6cms outside of the line. They should also almost entirely colour within the lines of a 10cm circle.
By the time they are 4.5 years old, they should use a static tripod grasp consistently when using a writing tool (e.g. pencil/paintbrush/crayon/marker).
As my twin preschoolers used their water paints to colour their towns, my eyes observed their fine motor skills, and my ears appreciated the peace and quiet of the moment. It was wonderful.
We want to share our happy 3 p.m. moment with you and your household; download our free printable town colouring page. We would love to hear about your 3 p.m. moments.
N & M: 4 years, 3 months
September 2012
Looking for more free printable colouring/drawing pages?
Here are some of our favourites:
Picklebums – Printable Shape Drawing Prompts
Picklebums – Printable Drawing Frames
My Little Bookcase – The Wonkey Donkey
Mamasmiles – Printables
At Home with Ali – One Fish, Two Fish Printable
About the author
Pauline LessonsLearntJournal; because #playmatters. On Lessons Learnt Journal you'll find activities for children, play, parenting, maths games, handwriting, reading and much more.
Pauline is a Christian, Wife, Mother of 4, Primary School Teacher. When not blogging, she may be found virtually hoarding on Pinterest, trying to decide which Instagram filter to apply, or compulsively refreshing her Facebook feed. Most days you'll find her chasing her kids and that much needed nap.
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I love your printable – especially that it can also be recreated with most wooden block sets!
Thanks for sharing our coloring printable
Thanks Maryanne. I must confess, the wooden block sets were the inspiration to this printable. Love your work and always glad to share. xoxo P
I love that blocks were you inspiration for this printable.
Our home has become block mad this week. I love the block creations, but when they are scattered all over the floor like mines, the relationship becomes more lukewarm. xoxo P
What a wonderful printable- shape recognition, fine motor skill development (and I love Maryanne’s suggestion of also using it as a blueprint for building)
…can I just say how beautiful your waterpaints look. When my daughter is painting she is attracted to the black paint (????) and every colour ends up looking black
Jackie, one of my twins is obsessed with red. Everything is in red if he can help it. Makes his drawings quite scary as it always looks very bloody. I think black would be a better colour to be obsessed with. xoxo P
Oh I know that hour (though not 3pm here it still happens!) and I know the wonder of water paints! I love that they are so easy to set up and pack up and don’t make much mess so they fulfill my boy’s desire to paint every day without driving me crazy!
Kate, I’m kicking myself for not introducing water paints sooner. They are simply awesome. As you said, so much easier to set up and clean up. Less crazy is always good.
Pauline I love this! Oh I know that hour very well! Thanks for the fun printable.
We had a few of those witching hours today. It was like a tornado swept through the place whenever I turned my back. I’m exhausted.
This looks fabulous and will certainly come in handy around here!
Thank you Bek. Would love to see how they turn out
xoxo P
I wrote a really long comment but it sounded too teachery and boring so I just deleted it. Short comment, fabulous and thanks for sharing! I think working within boundaries on occasions is important for young minds and hands and i also think that having quick, go-to, quiet, independent activities for certain times (like your 3pm or my least preferred 5pm) is just brilliant! Also, people that think you can’t be creative working within boundaries are just, simply, wrong
Now you have me pondering what your teacher perspective would have been Debs. Thank you for your kind words. I love your work so your words do mean a lot to me. xoxo P
This will be very useful for difficult afternoons. I am sharing this on facebook. Thanks for including our fish too.
Thank you Ali for sharing. We love your fish. Will have to print some off for this week. xoxo P
Just printed!!Thanks!!
Great printable Pauline! I just loving reading your post every week. I’ll be doing this one with Miss Poss and judging her fine motor skills tomorrow!
Penny – you have made my day. Thank you so much for your kind comment. Would love to see Miss Poss’ lovely art
xoxo P
What a fabulous idea for a printable…..and love how you have incorporated water Colours. Printing it off now for my girls, thank you! …….on another note your blog is looking fabulous and I love all the new changes, you’ve done a fabulous job!
Thank you Janice. Would love to see your girls wonderful work
xoxo P
This is great! We’ll have to do this soon.
Thanks for sharing!
Would love to see how it works out if you get a chance to do this one Kendall. xoxo P
Thanks for the fun activity. I try to incorporate architecture activities into our homeschool and I printed these out for my guys to try. There are not many architecture themed activities for young children. I created a linky to be a resource for kids architecture activities. Please feel free to share this. Thanks again!
http://motherofdiscussion.blogspot.com/p/we-built-this-linky.html
Thanks Christa. I will visit and link up. Thanks for the invite. xoxo P
Hi, I\’m going to try this with my 3.5 year old son, as he loves making buildings with his blocks. However I\’ve never had much luck with him spending more than a few minutes on painting or drawing. He would much rather be playing trains, riding his bike, climbing on equipment at the park or digging in the sandpit. He just doesn\’t have any interest after 2 or 3 minutes of painting, and rushes off to drive his digger or make a cubby house. Luckily he LOVES reading so he\’ll happily sit while we read together for over half an hour, so I know he can sit still! If anyone has any advice or has had this experience before I\’d love to hear their ideas. I have tried all kinds of activities inside and outside, as well as every kind of media you can imagine, but he\’s just not into it. I\’m concerned now as he is nowhere near the standards mentioned in this article and I can\’t see how I could get him to improve much either.
Great blog, always a good read.
Hi Belinda,
Your son sounds like a happy and very capable boy. That’s awesome that he can sit for over half an hour to read. My sons would not be able to do that and they are over four. Each child is different.
Is it his fine motor skills you’re concerned about? Or his reluctance to draw and paint? If it’s his fine motor skills – there are so many other activities that he can do besides drawing and painting; e.g. play dough, sand play; water play. Does he enjoy messy painting activities?
Also, I think you’d be amazed how much a child changes within six months. I think there’s a world of difference between a 3.5 year old and a 4 year old and again a 4 year old and a 4.5 year old, etc. The expectations stated in my post are for a 4+ year old and is an average mark. Some children will reach this milestone before this time, others later.
I hope this helps. Thank you for your kind words about my blog.
xoxo P
Hi Pauline,
Great to read your detailed reply, thank you!
Hopefully I don’t sound like a paranoid Mum as I’m sure in time he will be fine, but it’s the first time I’ve seen specific descriptions of capabilities for near his age bracket and I was quite surprised at how ‘accurate’ an ‘average’ child should be. I’m mainly concerned about his fine motor skills (I’d love it if he was more interested in painting for fun, but if he’s not then that’s fine, he has lots of other things he loves instead.) He does get some fine motor skills with duplo, lego, sandplay, etc but I’m unsure if this is the same as holding a brush or pencil for a sustained period. I know he’s only 3.5 and the article is for slightly older children, but I guess my Mum’s instinct has been mulling this over for a little while, and your blog post got me motivated. Also, recently I’ve noticed that some other kids/friends at his age are able to draw suns, grass, hearts and clouds (messy ones but they can be recognised) and there is no way that he would be able to do this. He has recently started to enjoy cutting up paper with scissors, so that’s been a good activity we’ve discovered together.
I’ll keep offering the paints, textas and crayons and hopefully one day he’ll suddenly find something interesting that captures his imagination and then we’ll be off and away!
Thanks again for your advice, it’s very much appreciated.
I love meeting my readers and getting to know them. Thank you so much for striking up a conversation
You don’t sound at all like a paranoid Mum Belinda. A good high school friend of mine is a paediatrician. My twins were very, very late speakers. I told her that I wasn’t that worried about it, but still… I wasn’t sure. Her best piece of advice to me was to get them assessed. They had nothing to lose by getting assessed. If they didn’t need the extra support, that’s fine. If they do need extra support, it’s best to get onto it early on as early intervention is key.
xoxo P
Hi Pauline,
After all that I had a big success yesterday – we painted 2 big canvases by squeezing tubes of paint directly on to the canvas and then squishing the paint around with brushes. He loved it! Spent half an hour deeply engrossed in the paint and the process. Will definitely keep in mind the recommendation about assessment, but maybe we\’ve hit on something that has sparked an interest in exploring painting in more depth.
Kids… just as you think you know them they go and change on you!!!
Thanks for the wise words.
Cheers
Hi Belinda,
What great news! So glad to hear your guy had so much fun with painting on canvas. xoxo P