Animals Tracing and Coloring Workbook: 34 Animals to Trace, Color and Name (Free PDF)

Who this workbook is for

Animals are the topic young children ask about most, so this workbook uses that interest to practice the hand skills behind writing. It is for ages 3 to 6. Younger children can trace the dotted picture, color it and trace the big dotted word, which is already a lot of fine motor work. Older preschoolers and kindergarteners can write the name again on their own line, read the fun fact aloud and sort the animals into groups.

Every animal page follows the same routine, so after the first page children know what to do and can work with very little help. The workbook is a good next step after the Pre-Writing Lines and Shapes Book, because tracing a dotted animal outline is the same skill as following a dotted line, only with more curves. It sits well beside the Animals Tracing and Coloring Book, which has different pictures, matching games and word-tracing pages, and the Fruits and Vegetables Tracing and Coloring Book, which uses a similar layout for food words.

What is inside the Animals Tracing and Coloring Workbook

The workbook has 40 pages. Every page is numbered in the bottom corner and page 3 shows all five groups with a small picture of each animal, so you can print one group at a time.

What every animal page looks like

All 34 animal pages have the same four parts, from top to bottom. A colored tab names the group, such as Wild Animals, and one line of instructions says what to do. In the middle are two panels side by side. Panel 1, “Trace”, shows a dotted outline of the animal with its face and body details, and panel 2, “Color”, shows the same animal as a clean outline ready for crayons or colored pencils. Below them, a panel called “Trace the word, then write it” shows the animal’s name in dotted letters on writing lines, with a green dot at the start of every stroke, and a second set of empty lines to write the name again alone. The page ends with a one-sentence fun fact, such as “Lions live in groups called prides” or “A butterfly starts life as a caterpillar”.

The order of the three jobs is on purpose. Tracing the picture warms up the hand with big, easy curves. Coloring gives the hand a break and lets children look closely at the animal. Writing the name comes last, when the hand is warm and the child already knows how the animal looks.

Start here (pages 1–3)

A cover with a lion, an elephant, a panda, a penguin and a rabbit under a rainbow, a welcome page and the contents. The welcome page explains in six short steps how to use the book: print at 100% (Actual size), trace the dotted outline slowly, color the picture on the right, say the animal’s name aloud and trace the dotted letters, read the fun fact together, and do one or two pages a day. A key shows what the dotted “Trace me” circle and the solid “Color me” circle mean, and a box at the bottom says “This book belongs to”.

Wild Animals (pages 4–11)

Eight animals: lion, elephant, tiger, zebra, giraffe, bear, monkey and crocodile. Among the fun facts are “An elephant uses its trunk like a hand”, “No two zebras have exactly the same stripes” and “A giraffe is the tallest animal on land”. Most children already know these animals from picture books and zoo visits, so the pictures need no explanation and your child can concentrate on following the dots. Other facts in the section include “Bears have a very good sense of smell”, “Monkeys are great climbers” and “Crocodiles love to rest in the warm sun”.

Farm Animals (pages 12–18)

Seven farm animals: cow, horse, pig, sheep, chicken, duck and goat. This section has the shortest names in the book (cow, pig, duck, goat), so it is the easiest one for writing the word alone. The fun facts connect the animals to everyday life, for example “Cows give us milk”, “Sheep wool is used to make warm clothes” and “A hen lays eggs that we can eat”.

Sea Animals (pages 19–25)

Seven animals of the ocean: whale, dolphin, shark, sea turtle, octopus, crab and seahorse. The facts point out surprising details, such as “A whale is a mammal and breathes air”, “An octopus has eight arms”, “Crabs walk sideways” and “Seahorses swim standing up”. The octopus is a good page for counting, because children can count the eight arms as they trace.

Birds (pages 26–31)

Six birds: a small bird that is simply called “bird”, an owl, a parrot, a penguin, a flamingo and an eagle. The first page has the general fact “Birds have feathers and most of them can fly”, and the later pages show how different birds can be: a bird that swims instead of flies (“Penguins are birds that swim instead of fly”), one that hunts at night (“Many owls hunt at night”), one that copies words (“Some parrots can copy human words”) and one that often stands on one leg (“Flamingos often stand on one leg”).

Insects (pages 32–37)

Six small creatures: butterfly, ladybug, bee, dragonfly, grasshopper and snail. Facts include “A ladybug is a small beetle”, “Bees carry pollen from flower to flower” and “A dragonfly has four wings”. This section holds the longest names in the book, including grasshopper, which has eleven letters, so it is best saved for last. The section is named Insects but also includes a snail, which is a mollusk, not an insect. You can use that as a talking point about how animals are grouped, and the table later on this page shows how the 34 animals sort into groups.

Good Job, certificate and back cover (pages 38–40)

Page 38 is a drawing page called Good Job: a big dashed box with the words “Draw your favorite animal here!” and two lines to finish the sentences “My favorite animal is” and “I like it because”. Page 39 is a certificate of achievement with a line for the child’s name, the date and a parent or teacher signature, and page 40 is the back cover.

Sorting and talking about the animals

The workbook is organized by where animals live, because that is how young children usually think about them: the farm, the jungle, the sea, the sky and the garden. Once a child has colored a few pages, you can sort the finished pages in other ways. Which animals have four legs? Which ones fly, swim or crawl? Which ones lay eggs? Sorting like this adds science vocabulary to a handwriting activity without any extra worksheets.

If you want to use the proper names, the table below shows how scientists group the 34 animals in the book. It is also a quick answer to the question every parent hears sooner or later: is a whale a fish? It is not. A whale and a dolphin are mammals that breathe air and feed their young milk.

Plenty of pairs make good conversation: a shark and a dolphin both live in the sea but are different kinds of animal, and a penguin is a bird that swims instead of flies. Ask your child why they think so before you give the answer, and let them look at the picture for clues such as feathers, fur or scales.

Which animals should we start with?

The book follows the contents order, so you can work through it page by page. You do not have to. Names get harder as they get longer, and a child who feels successful on the first few pages is likely to keep going. The table below sorts all 34 animals by the length of their names and gives the page number for each, so you can print the easiest pages first.

Children also write better when they care about the animal. If your child loves sharks, start with the shark page even if the name is a little longer than cow. For a longer name, ask your child to clap the syllables first: gi-raffe, pen-guin, but-ter-fly. Our guide on How to Teach Syllables to Preschool and Kindergarten Children has a simple method.

A five-week plan

One section a week keeps the book to about five weeks and gives each week a theme. The plan starts with the farm because those names are the shortest.