American Flag Coloring Page

I don't know about your kid, but mine loves to color.  The second she figured out what crayons do, she would grab one in each hand and study the lines that they make.  I love it.  A few weeks ago, I decided that since she loves to color and draw, I would buy her a little art journal to keep around.  I pull it out once or twice a week, and she goes crazy with coloring and stickers.  She would go at it for hours if I let her.

So I thought maybe for July 4th, I'd pull out a page of her journal to dedicate to something a little more themed.  I remember seeing a project on Pintrest using a canvas, paint, and some masking tape.  The idea is that if you "draw" a picture on the canvas using the tape, your toddler can finger paint all over the canvas.  When it dries, you peel off the tape and ta da!  You get beautiful artwork made by your child.

Using the same concept, I blocked off the top left corner of a plain piece of drawing paper.  Then, I added stripes.  I didn't have any small star stickers (though that would have been perfect), so I just created one big star in the upper corner. Here's what it looks like at this point:

*Note* You may want to rub the tape to your jeans or similar fabric before you lay it down on your paper.  It would make it easier to peel off later.  I didn't do this, and ended up ripping off part of the paper!

Once you have the tape on the paper the way you want it, pull out your choice of coloring utensils in red and blue.  My girl loves crayons, and we collect them from restaurants, so we have plenty on hand without even spending a dime on them!

Also, Penelope likes to have a few to choose from, so I made sure there were multiple crayons in each color.  This also opened up an opportunity to talk about colors and the words "same" and "different."  It's amazing to see how she responds when I tell her she has two of the same crayons.  She looks at both hands, drops one, and picks up one of a different color.  =o)

So once you have your coloring utensils out, it's time to pick a comfortable spot, plop down with your kiddo, and color!

Both the floor and the big comfy chair are great places to color!

This part took the longest.  As you probably know, a toddler's attention span doesn't necessarily last super long.  A couple minutes of this, and she was ready to move onto something else.  She came back to it every now and then, but it took a couple days of coloring here and there to get it really colored.

The result should look something like this:

Of course, the more color there is, the better!   

I just couldn't get any more coloring out of her on this!

She did some great coloring, didn't she?

Once it's as colored as it's going to get, you get to do the fun part of tearing off that tape.  If you did the "stick to the jeans first" trick, you should have an easier time doing this than I did.  When it's all off... ta-da! You have a great red and blue flag your little one has created!  Perfect for hanging on the refrigerator!