Color by number is coloring with a key. Every space in the picture has a number, and every number stands for one color. Your child reads a number, picks up the right crayon and fills the space, until a whole picture appears. This guide explains how it works, how to pick a size, a few tips that make it easier, and what you can play and print from the color by number pictures on this site.
How color by number works
A color by number page has two parts: the picture, cut into numbered spaces, and the key, which lists each number with its color. A child reads the number in a space, finds it in the key and fills the space with that color.
Our pictures are drawn like stained-glass windows. Big shapes, like a butterfly’s wing or the sky, are cut into smaller pieces, so the same color turns up in lots of spaces. The picture appears bit by bit, and it’s fun to guess what it is before it’s done.
On paper, the key sits under the picture. It names every color (blue, peach, dark green and so on), with an empty box beside each name. Before starting, your child can color each box with the crayon they plan to use. Then the key matches their own crayons, and it works from a black-and-white printer too.
Pick a size for each age
Every picture here comes in three sizes. The picture stays the same, but the spaces get smaller and the colors more numerous:
- Easy: 34 to 45 big spaces in 6 to 8 colors. The numbers only go up to 8. A good start at about age 4, or for anyone’s first try.
- Medium: 101 to 114 spaces in 11 or 12 colors. Details appear, like flowers in the grass or more stripes on the hot air balloon. For most 5- and 6-year-olds.
- Hard: 235 to 288 small spaces in 11 to 13 colors. For ages 7 and 8, and anyone who likes a long project. On screen, zooming in helps. On paper, sharp colored pencils reach the little spaces better than crayons.
The ages are only a guide. What matters more is whether your child can read every number in the key.
Tips that make it easier
- Start with the biggest spaces. They’re quick to fill and make the picture show up fast, which gives little ones a reason to keep going.
- One color at a time. Pick a number, find every space with it, then move on. It means fewer crayon swaps and fewer missed spaces. On screen, tapping a color gives all its spaces stripes.
- Do the light colors first. If yellow slips over a line, the darker color next door can still cover it. A slip of navy can’t hide under yellow.
- Outline, then fill. Trace just inside the edge of a space, then color the middle. It keeps the color inside the lines.
- Tick off the key. On paper, put a small tick beside a color when all its spaces are done. On screen, a finished color gets its tick by itself.
- Hunt for the hidden ones. The smallest spaces hide along the edges and between big shapes. Look the picture over once more for white spaces. On screen, the light bulb finds a space of your color and zooms in if it’s small.
- Stop while it’s fun. A Hard picture can take more than one sitting. On screen, each picture keeps the spaces colored so far, in that browser, so it’s waiting next time.
Nine pictures to color
Each picture has its own page, with the game, its sheets to print and a true fact to talk about:
- Animals: a butterfly over the grass, an orange fish with white stripes, an owl under the moon, a sea turtle seen from above and a long-necked dinosaur beside a smoking volcano.
- Up in the sky: a rocket zooming past the planets and a striped hot air balloon over the hills.
- Garden and fairy tale: a tall sunflower, with a ladybug on Medium and Hard, and a castle with pink towers and a rainbow.
The quickest is the butterfly on Easy (34 spaces), and the longest the hot air balloon on Hard (288).
What each page prints
Every picture’s page has three sheets to print, one for each size. Each card says how many spaces and colors its sheet has, and every sheet has its color key under the picture. They fit on A4 or US Letter paper.
The printer button above the game prints the picture as it is on screen, with the spaces already colored filled in, so a child can start on screen and finish on paper. Once a picture is finished, the same button prints it in full color, with “Colored by me!” under the title.
The main Color by number page has one sheet of each size ready: the fish on Easy (39 spaces in 6 colors), the owl on Medium (105 in 12) and the castle on Hard (239 in 13).
On screen or on paper?
On screen, your child taps a color in the palette and every space of that color gets stripes, so they can find the spaces before they can read every number. A tap fills a space with a quick wipe of color, and a tap that just misses still fills the nearest space of that color. A wrong tap never counts against anyone: the space’s number wiggles, and the color it needs bounces in the palette. Pinch to zoom into small spaces. For tired hands, the magic brush colors every space of one color at once, and undo takes back the last color. It’s free, with no ads and no sign-up.
On paper, there’s no zooming, so the size matters more: Easy sheets suit chunky crayons, and Medium and Hard go better with sharp colored pencils. Paper is handy at the table or on a long trip. Every picture is cut into the same spaces each time, so a printed sheet always matches the picture on screen.
Where to go next
If your child likes matching numbers, try a dot to dot, where counting draws the picture. Our dot to dot guide shows how to pick one, and our road trip guide shows how to pack printed puzzles for a long ride.
In the Little Paper app for iPhone and iPad, the Coloring book has 48 original pages to color.
