Whenever Thanksgiving approaches, even very young children can begin to learn about the significance of the holiday by coloring in pictures of Pilgrims.  This will inevitably lead to questions about who these people were and why we remember them, and you can tell them stories about the Pilgrims and their native American friends while they are busy with their crayons.

There’s no need to spend money on expensive coloring books.  Simply download a selection of coloring pages from the internet.  Better still, show your children what’s available, and let them choose themselves.

Coloring-page has forty printable Thanksgiving coloring images, including eleven of Pilgrims. The best ones are:

Pilgrim with native American

Pilgrim couple, hands raised

Pilgrim man with harvest food

Pilgrim couple (suitable for younger children)

Pilgrim couple giving thanks (detail and shading, appropriate for older children)

Pilgrim man with horn of plenty

Pilgrim child with harvest basket

Pilgrim couple surrounded by harvest food

Pilgrims and native Americans with giant turkey

First-school has many of the same images, but there are an additional nine not found at Coloring-page:

Mayflower 1

Mayflower 2

Pilgrim boy

Pilgrim couple

Pilgrim greeting

Pilgrim with native American

Pilgrim with turkey

Scarecrow dressed as pilgrim

Turkey dressed as pilgrim

The Calvary Baptist Church has a kids Thanksgiving page which includes four Pilgrim images – Pilgrim turkey , Pilgrim woman with native American , Pilgrims giving thanks , Pilgrim and native American friendship – not included in the sites already mentioned. A pleasing feature is the ability to see all the images at once in thumbnail size.

Fun4thechildren has links to some of the best images for older children, with lifelike figures, artistic presentation and plenty of background detail. Check out Pilgrims giving thanks , Harvest of pumpkins , Pilgrim lady , Pilgrim man and Pilgrims planting corn as an indication of the quality images you can expect to find, and then enjoy exploring some of the others. There are twenty-eight in total on this site.

Apples4the teacher has a fun interactive Pilgrim coloring page. Once again the images are all visible in thumbnail size on a single page. By clicking on the image kids are given the option of coloring in (using the mouse and a click-and-fill color palette) or printing the black and white outline for coloring with crayons in the conventional way. The images range from simple to quite sophisticated.

Dltk-holidays has two options.

The Dltk first option is a page of seven uncomplicated images for younger children, with a choice between printing a black-and-white outline drawing or a pre-colored drawing (for which a color printer would obviously be required). The colored-in version could be used as a template to show a group of children what their finished crayoned version might look like.

The Dltk second option has outlines of Pilgrims and Pilgrim faces with details omitted. These can be printed (in black-and-white or color) to allow the child to add facial features, hair, buttons, buckles and other elements. The site suggests encouraging the use of 3D materials, e.g. wool stuck on with glue for the Pilgrims’ hair, in addition to crayons.

If you let your children begin coloring in early enough you will have lots of attractive pictures to decorate the room where you hold your Thanksgiving feast. 

Happy Holidays!