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Because of health, expenses, etc., it can be hard to visit all your children and grandchildren as often as you like. Fortunately there are lots of fun and creative ways to keep close to them in spite of the distance. One of my ongoing plans for this blog is for us all to share different ways we have discovered that make the distance seem not so far away.
My grandkids who don’t live close love coloring pages. They’d keep their parents printing them out and buying them at stores all day long if they could. Naturally, that’s not an option. But it does create a great opportunity for a grandparent to help in that area.
Periodically I have fun preparing an email of coloring pages, books and projects for them to enjoy. I use public domain coloring pages I’ve found on the net along with coloring pages I’ve purchased. I’m primarily a computer-oriented grandma, but once in a while, I’ll even prepare a GRANDMA CARES package for the snail mail route. In that, I will usually tuck in stickers, coloring books, activity sheets, and other fun goodies. The Dollar Store is a wonderful help with that, although I am very careful about what I buy for the younger ones because of all the warnings lately about unsafe toys that go into little mouths.
The nice thing about these emails and boxes is that they are as much a gift for my adult kids as my grandkids. They enjoy watching the little ones open the boxes. They also enjoy the peace and quiet that ensues as little ones grab their crayons, scissors, and new coloring pages and get creative. Granted said quiet only lasts a short time, but it’s still sweet.
Some great resources for clipart include: Dover Publications – This company is famous for high-quality artwork that is public domain – free to use and reuse within certain boundaries. I have purchased two of their coloring books with computer disks. The pictures are great and the cds are easy to work with. You can find the books listed in my Amazon Book list for Grandparents on my Favorite Books and Music page (see Resource-full Links on the right) – You can then print them out or email them to your grandkids to enjoy.
They also offer a wonderful sampler email that comes out every week. This links to their site where you can find great sales and more than a dozen sample pages from different books. Most samples give you two printable, copy-able pages that kids will enjoy coloring as well as some simple mazes, dot-to-dots, etc. Some are black and white, some are color, all are high quality. I especially love the turn-of-the-century colored pictures. They are so cute. Those are great for kids to cut out and glue onto pictures with glue sticks. Old fashioned stickers for free!
A great Christian site is ChristianAnswers.Net’s Kid Explorers . They not only have printable coloring pages, they have online interactive coloring pages, plus a whole bunch of other cool stuff for kids and grandparents to do while learning more about God and His awesome world. For those grandkids who are far away, you can both get on the computer at the same time, look at the same pictures and have a great time comparing colors as you work together, yet separately. You’ll notice I have added them to the sidebar along with the word search option. Now you can check your news, then print out some fun activities to do with your little ones – be they your children or grandchildren.
It probably comes as no surprise to you that the world’s best crayola maker (in my personal opinion 🙂 ), also has a very snazzy website complete with great coloring pages – both for printing out or for coloring online, along with some other fun activities. You can find all that that at www.crayola.com . Their copyright specifically allows personal use so it should be ok for you to copy and paste these coloring pictures into an email to send your grandkids – and do let them know it’s thanks to Crayola’s great site.
Have a colorfully fun time and leave a comment or send an email to let us know your favorite sites for coloring pages.
P.S. Click here for more fun options.