Autumn Leaf Coloring Page

About this coloring page

A broad maple leaf with clear veins, with three smaller leaves falling around it. The veins divide the leaf into large sections, which turns a single shape into something with structure: a child can give each section its own color and the result looks like a real autumn leaf rather than an orange blob. Doing exactly that, with reds bleeding into oranges and golds across the sections, is the fastest way to make this page look accomplished, and it takes no skill beyond choosing colors that sit near each other. The three small falling leaves give somewhere to repeat the exercise at a smaller scale once the main leaf is done. It suits a nature walk: collect real leaves, then color this one alongside them and compare. Printed at A4 the leaf fills most of the sheet, which makes it a good page for the youngest children, and the sections are each wide enough for a chunky crayon.

Color suggestions

• Red, orange and gold across the sections
• One color in three depths
• Brown stem
• Leave the background white

Did you know?

• The maple leaf on the Canadian flag is a stylised design with eleven points and does not match any real maple species. It was simplified deliberately so it would stay legible flapping in wind.
• A leaf's vein pattern is a distribution network solving the same problem as plumbing, and the branching angles that appear in maples turn out to be close to the mathematically most efficient way to move fluid across a flat surface.