Tractor Coloring Pages

A tractor is the vehicle small children love before they love cars: huge back wheels, a little cab, a tall exhaust pipe, and a job to do. These tractor coloring pages give it work. A tractor pulls a plow across a field and leaves curved furrows behind it, another hauls a trailer stacked with round hay bales, another raises a front loader full of dirt, and one splashes through a stream between the rocks.

The drawings are original, made for this site, and free to print at home, in class or for a party.

A year of farm work

The pages follow the jobs a tractor actually does. In spring a tractor pulls a seed drill across a freshly plowed field and a farmer drives over the hills as the sun comes up. In summer one mows the tall grass beside a fence, another sprays a cornfield between the rows, and another pulls a hay rake past a haystack in a field of flowers. At harvest a tractor with a cutting head moves through ripe wheat, another pulls a trailer of apples, and another rolls through a pumpkin patch with its trailer full. In winter, one pushes a snowplow blade through deep drifts.

Around the farm there is more to do: carrying logs to the farmhouse, towing a broken-down pickup truck with a flat tire, waiting while a line of ducks crosses the path, and resting in the shade of a big oak. A dog rides in one cab and a curious cow peeks around another.

Tractors for every holiday

Farm families decorate their tractors, and these pages do the same. A tractor wears Christmas lights and a wreath on its grille, another carries a decorated tree in its loader, and a snowy one parks beside a snowman. In October a tractor is hung with little ghosts and bats, and another pulls pumpkins under a grinning jack-o-lantern. There is a Valentine tractor with a bow and hearts, a vintage tractor carrying an Easter basket, a tractor with birthday balloons tied to its cab, and a hayride full of waving children, which is the page to print for a farm-themed party.

Why the back wheels are so big

Children always notice the giant back wheels, and the answer is a good one. The engine's power goes mostly to the back wheels, and bigger wheels with deep tread grip soft ground without sinking, the way a wide boot works better in mud than a high heel. The chevron-shaped lugs on the tires push the soil backward like little paddles. The small front wheels mostly steer.

A few more facts for the curious:

• The first tractors ran on steam and were heavy enough to sink in a wet field. Gasoline tractors arrived in the 1890s and changed farming within a generation.
• The tall pipe on the hood is the exhaust, pointed upward so the smoke goes over the driver's head.
• A front loader turns a tractor into a digger and a carrier; the tractors carrying dirt, logs and a Christmas tree are all using one.
• The machine pulled behind the tractor does the real job: a plow turns the soil, a seed drill plants, a rake gathers hay, a sprayer waters or protects the crop.

Old tractors and new ones

Two kinds of tractor share these pages, and they are worth telling apart. The vintage tractors, like the one under the oak tree or the one carrying the Easter basket, have an open seat with no cab, a narrow hood with a grille on the front, rounded fenders over the back wheels and a steering wheel standing up in the open air. The modern tractors sit inside a glass cab with a roof, often with lights along the top, and carry a loader or a machine on the back.

Old tractors were smaller because farms were smaller, and many are still kept running for shows and parades. A vintage tractor looks best in one bold color with silver or cream wheel centers, the way restored ones are painted for a show. A modern cab is mostly glass: color the frame, then add a pale blue sky reflection on the windows and leave a white streak for the shine.

Colors farm kids will expect

Many children know tractors by color before they know the brands. Green with yellow wheels is the look of John Deere, orange belongs to Kubota, blue to New Holland, and red to Massey Ferguson and Case IH. A child who knows which tractor the neighbor drives will want that one. The drawings carry no brand, so any color is right, and two or three tractors in different colors on the same page make a good farm show.

For the tires, color them dark gray or black and leave the tops of the lugs a little lighter, so the tread stands out. Mud is a mix of brown and gray dabbed on, darker near the bottom of the wheels.

Some pages have one big tractor and very little around it, which suits a toddler with chunky crayons.

• A tractor with birthday balloons
• A tractor crossing a stream
• A tractor lifting dirt

Others fill the page with barns, crops, trailers and animals, and those keep an older child busy for an afternoon.

• A tractor pulling a hayride
• A tractor with an Easter basket
• A tractor spraying a cornfield

A tractor party and a farm wall

A tractor party only needs a stack of different pages: the hayride, the birthday balloons, the pumpkin trailer, the tractor and the cow. Each guest picks one, and the finished pages go on the wall as the farm show. In class, the farm-work pages make a simple sequence: plow, plant, spray, harvest. Children color one stage each and line the pages up in order along the board. For a winter display, the snowplow, the snowy tractor and the Christmas tractor go together.

Printing the tractors

Every page is a free A4 PDF drawn at 300 dpi. Print at actual size on A4; on US Letter, choose "fit to page" so the trailer and the field edges stay on the paper. The printing guide shows the setting on each system. Add to pack gathers several tractors into one file. For more of the farm, the farm coloring pages and the cow coloring pages fill the barnyard, and the truck coloring pages carry on along the road.