Turkey Coloring Page

About this coloring page

A plump turkey standing with a wide fan of tail feathers spread behind it. The fan is the page. Each feather is a separate shape, which gives a child a run of identical areas to work through, and that repetition is genuinely useful practice: they learn the filling motion on the first feather and repeat it a dozen times, usually visibly neater by the last. Working around the fan in a color sequence and repeating it produces something that looks patterned without any planning. The body itself is one large brown shape that fills quickly, and the wattle and beak are the only small parts, best saved until last. It is an obvious page for the week of Thanksgiving and works for a classroom, since the same drawing colored twenty different ways makes a display without anyone needing twenty drawings. Printed at A4 the fan reaches close to the top edge, so print with a margin if these are going to be trimmed and pinned up. A turkey coloring sheet printed on card holds up as a table decoration, which paper will not once the tail has been colored heavily.

Color suggestions

• Warm brown body
• Feathers rotating through four colors
• Red wattle, orange beak
• Or every feather different

Did you know?

• Wild turkeys fly perfectly well and can reach around fifty miles an hour in short bursts. The domestic birds bred for the table are too heavy to get off the ground at all.
• A turkey's head changes color with its mood. The bare skin shifts between red, white and blue as blood flow changes, which is why an agitated bird looks so different from a calm one.