The unicorn boat
The unicorn boat: a free printable coloring page, from age 2. A hull shaped like a unicorn, a big round sail, and plenty of white all around.
- Recommended age
- Ages 2 and up · 10 to 15 minutes
- Themes
- On a journey, Unicorns
- Season
- Summer vacation
A unicorn lying down as a boat
The hull of the boat is the unicorn’s body. On the left, her head serves as the bow: a horn striped with four lines, a pointed ear, a closed eye edged with three lashes, a smiling muzzle. On the right, the tail curls into a loop above the gunwale. Between them, a straight mast and a semicircular sail, rounded toward the stern, taking up almost the whole right side of the sheet. Nothing else around it: no sea, no sky, no cloud. The drawing sits alone in the middle of the white, in a thick even line.
A boat, a sail, some wind
A sailing boat moves without an engine: the wind pushes the canvas, and the canvas pulls the boat. Two-year-olds already know the object — the bath boat, the pond boat, the one folded out of a sheet of paper. Here the illustrator went simpler still: he took a unicorn, laid her down, and the back became the hull. It is an idea the very young grasp at once, with no explanation. Many do ask, though, where the legs went.
Six shapes, not one more
Count them with the child: the sail, the hull, the head, the tail, the mast, the stripes of the horn. Six areas, and two of them cover half the sheet on their own. The outline is thick and even, with not a single sharp corner — it stays clearly visible under a fat marker. At 2, the hand still goes well outside the line; here it does not show, because there is nothing beside it to spoil. That is exactly the geometry needed for a first page taken all the way to the end.
The sail first, the sea afterwards
The sail is the largest surface on the page: hand it over first, in one bold color, with a broad-tipped marker. Once it is full, the child already feels the biggest part is done. The bottom of the sheet stays empty, and that is a piece of luck: suggest they draw the sea themselves, two or three waves in blue pencil, with no model. Ordinary 80 gsm paper is enough for wax crayons; move to 120 gsm if the markers come out, as they go through quickly.
A word for the grown-up: before the first pencil, ask your child to blow on the sail. In one gesture they understand what makes the boat go, and they then color a sail they filled themselves. Two seconds of staging, and the page becomes a story.
Coloring pages that go with this one
More pages from the same theme, age or season — the ones you print right after.
