Printable Kids' Activities

Printable Kids' Activities

With your computer and your printer, you can come up with an almost endless variety of printable kids’ activities. Not only are there sites designed primarily for teachers and home-schooling parents, various commercial sites offer ready-to-use activities, as well. You can find coloring sheets; games, such as mazes, word searches, and crossword puzzles; greeting cards; calendars, and even a storybook maker for creating a personalized storybook. One site even lets you create games tailored to your child’s interest or to your curriculum.

For a variety of activities, try some of these sites:

Arts and Crafts Supply Manufacturers

• Crayola – This site from one of the leading providers or kids’ arts and crafts materials has a large variety of materials, including coloring sheets, printable games, stencils, patterns for window clings, origami patterns and instructions, among many other things. They projects are themed around holidays, seasons, and historical events. Projects are appropriate for pre-school through elementary-school-age kids. It is necessary to register for this site. Advertising on the site is for Crayola products, and it is unobtrusive and child friendly.

• Rose Art’s Rainy Day Fun – This site from a manufacturer of arts and crafts supplies has a variety of coloring sheets, classified by theme. This site does not contain as much content as some of the others, but it does not require registration. Advertising on the site is for the company’s products and is appropriate for kids.

Designed for Teachers and Home Schooling Parents

• abcteach – This site is designed for teachers and not only has fun activities, but a wide variety of worksheets and other academic tools. In addition, there are printable maps, “did you know” cards, and other teaching materials. The tools section lets you create free crosswords, shapebooks, word wall, word unscramble puzzles, and word search puzzles. The age group targeted is kindergarten through eighth grade. Many of the materials are available for free, but a subscription membership gives you access to more of the site and more materials.

• DLTK Kids – This site is designed for use by parents with preschool and elementary school kids. There are many arts and crafts patterns, as well as instructions for a variety of kids’ activities. Projects feature items easily found around the house. The site also has links to sister sites with more printable activities. The pages feature banner ads and some annoying pop-ups; you may want to use a pop-up blocker with this site.

• Activity Village - This site is for parents and teachers of kids from 2-10, and is full of printable activities including coloring pages, word searches, sudoku puzzles, crosswords, flashcards and much more. You will also find printable stationery and certificates, greetings cards, and scrapbook paper. There are a few printable ebooks for sale, but most of the content (and there is a lot!) is free. There are also kids crafts, articles, jigsaw puzzles, and a really useful "Educational" section with lots of fun things to print.

Activities from Kids’ Television Networks

• Discovery’s Puzzlemaker This site requires registration but provides tools for making free custom puzzles, such as crosswords, word search, letter tiles, and cryptograms, among others. In addition, there are “Brain Boosters,” which are puzzles that promote critical thinking skills. Although designed for teachers, this site will be of interest to parents and also to older kids who may enjoy designing their own puzzles. Ads are appropriate for kids’ and center around Discover Channel’s products and services.

• Disney Magic Artist - This site offers printable kids' activities such play sets, coloring pages, greeting cards, calendars. The most unique feature of this site is the ability to create a personalized storybook featuring Disney characters. An interactive feature lets a child add his or her name to the story, along with other personal information, and then to print the storybook.

• Nick Jr. - The Nick Jr. site provides an activity finder that allows you to search for the desired activity. Printable kids’ activities feature such as Dora the Explorer, SpongeBob, and Miss Spider from Nick Jr. television shows. These printable activities are designed for pre-schoolers and are free. Ads are suitable for kids.

• PBS Kids – This site provides free printable activities and games centered around characters such as Arthur, Barney, Caillou, and Clifford from PBS' kids' series. The target ages for this site range from preschool through early elementary. Ads are unobtrusive and suitable for kids.

There are many other sites on the Internet with printable kids’ activities. However, each of the sites reviewed here is appropriate for parents and also safe for kids.

External Links

Looking for some stationery for kids! Go to Multimedia Design by Sandy For Kids for free stationery, note cards, and practice writing pages to print.