Series “Coccinelle demoiselle” · sheet 1 of 5
The ladybug in the hand
The ladybug in the hand: a free printable coloring page, from age 4. Sheet 1 of 5 in the “Coccinelle demoiselle” series.
- Recommended age
- Ages 4 and up · 20 to 40 minutes
- Themes
- Storybook scenes, Little bugs
- Series
- Coccinelle demoiselle · one of the five in the series
- Season
- Spring
A ladybug that comes to land
The ladybug has landed in the hollow of a wide-open hand, and it is not moving any more. It has a round face, two curved antennae and well-separated dots on its wings. The little girl holding it is holding her breath: her dress is dotted with hearts, her pigtails are tied with two hair ties. Beside her, a unicorn and a boy in a striped T-shirt watch without daring to move. Behind them, the house with the pointed roof has a chimney, a curtained window and a heart on the door. Three trees, clouds, stars, a path winding down to the bottom of the page.
The drawing and the song
“Coccinelle demoiselle” is the French rhyme you hum under your breath when a ladybug lands on you. You ask it to stay, you count its spots, and you watch it lift off toward the sky. This sheet opens the series: it is the first of the five, the one where the insect arrives. The next four take it onto a flower, beside a second ladybug, to the park, then in front of the school. Laid out on the table, the five sheets make a set, and you can sing the rhyme while coloring them.
Very large surfaces, and many small ones
The outline is thick and the largest areas really are large: the dress, the unicorn’s body, the T-shirt, the roof, the sky. Each fills with one or two passes of a fat marker, with no aiming. But then there is all the rest — the house and its curtains, the three trees, the path, the clouds, the stars, the ladybug’s spots — and it is that swarm of small things that makes it a sheet for 4 rather than for the very young. The finest ones stay optional: the page stands up even if they are left white.
The red last
The ladybug is the smallest shape on the page, and it is the one you look at first. Color it last, in a bold red, once everything else is down: it leaps off the sheet. The sky can stay white, or take a very pale blue in colored pencil, barely pressed. The sheet prints in landscape with a white margin all round, so nothing needs changing on the printer. Paper of 120 gsm keeps the markers from going through and marking the table.
A word for the grown-up: ask your child to count the spots on the ladybug’s wings before the pencils come out. Count first, color afterwards: the order changes everything, because it forces a close look at the drawing. And it adds ten quiet minutes before the first stroke.
The other sheets of “Coccinelle demoiselle”
The sheets are drawn on the theme of the same song. Same characters, same line: you print them together.
Coloring pages that go with this one
More pages from the same theme, age or season — the ones you print right after.
