Snowflakes Coloring Page

About this coloring page

Three large snowflakes, each with six simple arms, spaced well apart. This is the closest thing to a mandala we publish for children, and it works for the same reason: the symmetry has already decided the composition, so the only thing left is color. Doing each snowflake in one color and varying only its depth produces something that looks deliberate with no skill required. The arms repeat six times, which means a child learns the motion once and then performs it five more times, and they are usually visibly neater by the last one. It also prints well small, so two or four fit on one sheet if you are making paper decorations rather than a coloring page. Leaving the background white is the obvious choice, and coloring it dark blue is the more interesting one. Printed on card rather than paper these cut out cleanly and hang without curling. If you intend to color the background dark, use 120gsm or heavier and a colored pencil rather than a marker, because a large dark area laid down wet will buckle the sheet and take the crisp edges off the arms.

Color suggestions

• One blue per flake, varied in depth
• Silver or pale grey
• Deep navy background
• Leave the flakes white on dark

Did you know?

• Snowflakes have six sides because of the angle at which water molecules bond as they freeze, which is fixed by the shape of the molecule itself. Nothing else about the crystal is fixed, which is why no two grow alike.
• A farmer in Vermont called Wilson Bentley photographed more than five thousand snow crystals between 1885 and his death in 1931, catching them on black velvet and working fast before they melted.