Friendship Coloring Pages

Friendship is easier to show than to explain, and these friendship coloring pages show it the way children live it: sharing a treat, holding an umbrella, waiting for someone slower, telling a secret. They suit a classroom lesson about kindness as well as a card for a best friend.

The sharing pages come first: two friends with ice cream cones on a park bench, a giant cookie split down the middle, an umbrella held over two raincoats, a basket of apples carried between them through an orchard, a hammock and two books between palm trees. Some pages are about building things together: a pillow fort lit by a lantern, a tree planted with two spades, a birdhouse painted on an old cloth, a tower of stones beside a stream, a raised garden bed watered with two cans, and a kitchen table covered in flour where two friends bake. The playground has its own: a seesaw, a tyre swing pushed by a friend, kites flying from a hill, a bicycle built for two, a sledge full of cheering friends, marshmallows over a campfire, and a firefly glowing in a jar. Quieter pages show two girls whispering in a treehouse, a daisy chain being made, two friends back to back on a dock, and a girl carrying the school bag of a friend on crutches.

Animals make friends too: a puppy and a kitten asleep in one basket, an elephant walking with a mouse, a fox and a rabbit sharing a mushroom in the rain, a chibi cat holding an umbrella over a duck, a bear and a bunny holding a heart, two penguins hugging on the ice, two horses nuzzling in a paddock, and a dog resting beside a girl who reads. A friendship bracelet being braided, a mandala of hands and hearts, a pattern of hearts and knotted cords and a border of clasped hands and daisies complete the set.

A day for friends

The United Nations named July 30 the International Day of Friendship in 2011, and in the United States National Friendship Day falls on the first Sunday of August. Many schools also run friendship or kindness weeks in February, close to Valentine's Day, and at the very start of the school year, when children are getting to know a new class. Any of those dates is a good moment to print a stack of these pages, but a friend does not need a date.

The friendship bracelet

Friendship bracelets are woven or braided from colored threads, then tied onto a friend's wrist. The old custom is that the wearer makes a wish when it is tied and wears it until it falls off by itself; cutting it breaks the wish. The girl on the bracelet page is using a round braiding disk, the easiest way for a child to start: threads go into slots around the edge and are moved one at a time, and a neat braid grows out of the hole in the middle.

On the page, give each strand its own color. The pattern looks best with three or four colors that repeat in order.

Colors that feel friendly

There are no rules on these pages, but a few choices make them glow:

• Give each friend a signature color and use it on every page they appear in, a red jumper or a yellow raincoat, so they can be recognized across the set.
• Warm colors, yellow, orange, coral and pink, make the sharing scenes feel sunny.
• For the rainy pages, keep the sky gray and give the umbrella and the raincoats the brightest colors on the page.
• On the mandala and the knot pattern, color matching shapes the same way all around and the design turns into a flower.

Easy pairs and busy afternoons

The simplest pages keep two figures large and the background light: the elephant and the mouse, the giant cookie, the firefly jar, the bear and bunny. Quick to color, above the grid, begins with:

• Elephant and mouse
• Splitting a giant cookie
• Friends with a firefly jar

The detailed pages are full of wicker, petals and playground wood chips. Lots of detail begins with:

• Cat and dog in a basket
• Hands and hearts mandala
• Watering the garden

Color it for someone

These pages are best given away. Let a child choose the page that fits a friend, the kites for someone who loves being outside, the baking page for someone who loves cookies, and color it with that friend's favorite colors. On the back, they can write three things they like about that person. The border page, with clasped hands around an empty oval, holds a short message or a photo of the two of them.

In a classroom, a friendship chain works well: each child colors a page for the classmate whose name they draw from a hat, and the pages are pinned side by side along a wall.

Printing pages to share

All the pages are free PDFs drawn on A4 at 300 dpi. Print them at full size on A4, or choose "fit to page" on US Letter, which shrinks the drawing by about six percent so no hand or paw is cut off. The printing guide shows the setting. Add to pack puts a set for a whole class into one file. Hearts are in the heart coloring pages and the Valentine's coloring pages, and pages to give on a special day in the happy birthday coloring pages and the teacher coloring pages.