The turtle
The turtle: a free printable coloring page, from age 2. A shell like a big dome, three round feet and a spiral horn on top of the head.
- Recommended age
- Ages 2 and up · 10 to 15 minutes
- Theme
- Animals
A shell, and not much else
A turtle in profile, turned to the left, fills the width of the sheet. Its shell is a large smooth dome, sitting on a band that runs round it underneath. The head is round as a marble, with two big black eyes, a small smile, and a spiral horn planted just above the brow: four rings to color, not one more. Three broad feet carry it, rounded at the ends like cushions. Behind, a small pointed tail sticks out. Nothing else on the page: no grass, no sky, no setting.
What children know about turtles
The turtle is the animal children name when you ask who is slowest. They know it from books, from a park pond or from the classroom, where it eats its lettuce in no hurry. What strikes them is the house on its back: a hard shell it never takes off, and into which it pulls its head when something worries it. It lives to a great age, far longer than a cat or a dog, and some turtles know three generations of the same family.
Eight shapes, a very thick outline
Count the areas: the shell, the band underneath, the head, the three feet, the tail, the horn. Eight surfaces, not one more, and the largest takes up a third of the page on its own. The outline is thick, almost as wide as a pencil lead, and it closes every shape completely: a marker that strays a little is caught by the contour. At 2, the hand does not aim yet, it sweeps. This turtle is made to be swept with a marker, and it stays legible even filled crooked.
Cutting the shell into bands
The shell is the only large surface in the drawing: that is where everything is decided. One idea that works well: cut it into slices in pencil before starting, five or six bands following the curve, then fill every other band in green and the rest in orange. The turtle gets a pattern without anyone having to draw scales. For the horn, keep a bright yellow pencil: four rings, four strokes, and it lifts off the rest. Paper of 120 gsm is plenty.
A word for the grown-up: before the markers come out, have your child follow the edge of the shell with an index finger, slowly. That lap of the track shows them where the area stops, and they go over the line noticeably less afterwards.
Coloring pages that go with this one
More pages from the same theme, age or season — the ones you print right after.
