Upper elementary students still love coloring, and with the right strategies, we can turn this simple activity into a powerful educational tool. From fostering creativity to enhancing learning across subjects, coloring pages are a versatile resource you can keep in your teacher's toolbox all year.
Plus, there are so many benefits for students when you bring coloring activities into the classroom:
✅ encourages focus and concentration
✅ increases motivation
✅ enhances creativity
✅ reduces anxiety
✅ improves fine motor skills
✅ reinforces concepts learned
✅ helps kids calm down and transition
✅ encourages patience and persistence
Read on to discover eight creative ways to use coloring pages and activity sheets that will captivate and educate your upper elementary students!
1. Brainstorm for Writing Tasks
Using coloring pages as a starting point for brainstorming helps students when it comes time to write. I love using Doodle Thinker pages because the images directly match to the word work, list building, and writing topic. This allows students to already start thinking about their writing as they color. When they are done coloring, writing becomes their focus.
These are fun, simple, and meaningful to use each month for different holidays and special days!
2. Fast Finisher Bins and More
3. Vocabulary Building
We love to draw and label! You can have your students draw their own images or select coloring pages that relate to a specific theme or subject. Students can label different parts of the picture with new vocabulary words they are learning. For example, when you are learning the different parts of a plant, have students draw a plant or find an image/clipart of a plant that students can color and label! Doodle Thinker pages also help build our vocabulary through list writing.
4. Tricky Concept Review
Incorporate math by having students solve problems or puzzles where the answers determine the colors they use on different parts of the page. Color-by-code pages are great for this! We use color by code to help practice basic facts like addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. But we also use them for more complex math tasks like estimation, place value, telling time, and order of operations!
Don't limit yourself to math! Color-by-code activities are also perfect for any type of grammar practice or review, especially as the kids get older and need reminders and reviews of grammar concepts.
5. Content and Real World Connections
Use coloring pages related to scientific topics, like the solar system, animals, or plants. Students can color the pages and add labels or facts they have learned about each subject. We love to use science coloring pages to help us understand life cycles! Recently, we loved coloring pages to help us understand tricky concepts and vocabulary related to current events such as the Summer Olympics, solar eclipse, and leap year!
6. Positive Classroom Decor
I love to display student artwork and coloring! Allow students to color pages that will be used to decorate the classroom. This can help build a sense of community and ownership of their learning space. Select phrases that encourage a positive mindset. You can have students complete sets like these and leave them up all year, or have students color seasonal images and rotate the pages out each month or season.
7. Affirmations, Mindfulness, and Kindness
Integrate coloring pages into mindfulness and kindness activities. Coloring can be a calming activity that helps students focus and de-stress, especially during transitions, after tests, or during crazy times of the year. Daily affirmations are a great way to start the day positively and remind students how special they are! They are also a great way to teach students to be kind.
💡Teacher Tip: Use one affirmation a week. Give students time each morning to color the weekly affirmation. You can have students take their completed affirmation pages and create a book for themselves, or you can collect them and decorate your classroom, bulletin boards, or door with them!
Spread kindness with kindness pages devoted to helping your students reflect on kindness, promote ways that they can be kind, and bring kindness into your classroom! These are also fun to hand and display around the room because they include different kindness phrases!
Grab these FREE kindness coloring pages to try in your upper elementary classroom!
8. Interactive Projects
Create collaborative projects where students each color a piece of a larger image. When assembled, it forms a complete mural or poster that can be displayed in the classroom. These are fun to leave on the back table to have students complete as they finish work throughout the day or week. You can set a time limit to challenge students or just allow them to work and finish as they can. I loved using these last year for holiday and seasonal activities and decor. They are fun to hang when students are done!
🖍 Positivity Collaborative Coloring Poster
🖍 Affirmation Collaborative Coloring Poster
🖍 Back to School Collaborative Coloring Poster
🖍 Seasonal Collaborative Coloring Posters
🖍 Happy Birthday Collaborative Coloring Posters
Looking for more coloring activities like these? Head HERE.
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