Coloring Books + Organization = Happy Me

I think there’s a lot of value in coloring for kids. Sure, freehand coloring and drawing is EXTRA great, but even coloring in a good ol’ coloring book allows for expression, experimentation, creativity, and rule following. I have three budding artists who can spend at least a solid hour with a couple coloring pages.

But…I find there are inherent flaws with coloring books. First, kids like to color just a little bit on EVERY page. Then, the next time they open the book, they say there are no blank pages because they all have something drawn on them. Second, one book for multiple children causes fights. So you get multiple books, but then there’s fighting over which book each wants. So then you get the SAME book for all the kids. But then there’s fighting over “she took mine” or “she colored in mine” or “but her’s has more blank pages”. And third, coloring books get all beat up and take up a lot of space. Especially when over half the book is colored in but you have to keep the thing kicking around for the other blank pages.

Today, as my girls requested PRINTED coloring pages, from the computer, I decided that the time had come to organize our coloring books. I pulled them all out, whipped thru them, pulling out the blank pages, 3-hole punched them, and slapped them in a binder.

All our coloring books (plus sticker pages from those coloring books) are all in one spot, easy to access, easy to see, easy to store. Now if the kidswant a coloring page, they can flip thru the binder, pull out the ones they want to color, and then pass the binder to their sister (or brother if you have those in your home). All three problems solved. (Except, of course, the “but I wanted that page” problem, which I still haven’t figured out, unless you want to get multiples of the same book.)