For children for the development of fine motor skills It is necessary to practice coloring special pictures. Linear templates or stencils are created just for this. Ready-made drawings depicting objects or living creatures are also called contour drawings.
Types of contour drawings
The following are considered to be the types of contour drawings for children:
- coloring books (easier for 1.5-2 year olds, more difficult for older preschoolers);
- stencils (for applying to paper and tracing with subsequent coloring);
- templates or diagrams intended for those who will soon be going to school.

Systematic lessons using contour drawings:
- prepare for school;
- introduce the basics of writing and graphics;
- develop fine motor skills;
- develop creative abilities and memory;
- improve auditory and visual perception;
- improve logical and imaginative thinking;
- train speech and word formation skills;
- activate vocabulary;
- introduce people to the world around them.
Contour drawings are recommended for:
- familiarization with the colors and shapes of objects;
- determining the position relative to the plane;
- filling with paints or plasticine;
- coloring;
- finishing drawing;
- shading;
- encirclement.

Children with well-developed fine motor skills can:
- communicate better and make contact;
- pronounce sounds perfectly;
- speak coherently;
- it's better to pay attention to everything and remember;
- to reason correctly.
How Children Use Contour Drawing
In their creativity, children often use outline drawings for coloring. From 1.5 to 2 years old, they can be offered simple coloring books and colored pencils. From 3 years old, the child is introduced to brushes and paints. From the 4th year of life, children are already able to color outline pictures with numerous large and small details, as well as finish dot drawings.

For preschoolers who are already 5 years old, you can offer:
- coloring pages with characters from cartoons and fairy tales;
- outline drawings by cells or with numbers;
- coloring books with riddles and poems.
When coloring outline drawings, children learn to fill in the provided templates evenly and correctly without lifting the brush or pencil from the paper.
Finishing and shading ready-made templates teaches them:
- will;
- justice;
- kindness.
While drawing by dots, preschoolers:
- learn numbers and letters;
- concentrate attention on certain objects;
- are not distracted by extraneous factors.
Outline drawings for children are useful and fun tools to help them prepare for writing.
After all, the ability to do this is formed at an early age, when the child begins to color large pictures.
Embroidery lessons using outline drawings:
- massage fingers;
- improve well-being;
- introduce you to the wonderful world of creativity;
- develop accuracy and perseverance;
- form concentration;
- distract from the computer and TV;
- develop motor and visual memory;
- develop imagination and speech;
- improve spatial coordination.
Children's contour drawings for creativity
The suggested templates for creativity can be used in educational processes in kindergarten or for preparing children for school at home.
Animals
A child under 3 years old is asked to color a beautiful little sheep with colored pencils:
Adults can also cut out this drawing and use it as a stencil, which then needs to be attached to the album sheet. And then the child needs to be asked to paint the space around the sheep. After this, the stencil is removed and the drawing of the animal is shaded using wax crayons.
Contour drawings for children are useful because they help the child to complete everything he started. Thanks to this skill, the preschooler will feel more responsible and confident.
Children aged 4 and up can be invited to colour the bear's father with their son using felt-tip pens and crayons:
Here we can already see a greater number of details that older preschoolers love so much.
A child aged 5-7 will be interested in the general outline drawing scheme of animals:
- In the middle of the sheet, draw the body in the form of a horizontal oval.
- For the head, use a smaller oval, which is depicted slightly above the body, shifting it slightly to the left.
- The resulting parts are connected using curved lines, forming the animal’s neck.
- Next, draw the front paws using two identical long ovals.
- The hind legs will consist of a pear-shaped oval facing backwards and a long oval facing forwards.
- Then they finish drawing the muzzle, tail and ears.
- Finally, the extra lines are erased and the finished animal is colored.
The tasks and goals of working with contour diagrams are:
- development of animal drawing skills;
- strengthening knowledge about animals;
- fostering a positive attitude towards one's own work;
- development of eye and hand motor skills;
- identifying and drawing distinctive features of animals;
- learning to use general diagrams for drawing on paper;
- broadening horizons.
Coloring pictures for older preschoolers become more detailed. Such children can also be offered outline stencils or patterns with tracing by numbers. After solving them, they are usually colored. At the same time, the child develops ingenuity and basic calligraphy skills.
Birds
Coloring pages with birds will introduce children to their world. Outline images of birds can be filled in with pencils or paints or cut out. Such pictures are also often transferred to cardboard or fabric, and then embroidered with a cross or satin stitch.
This bird can be offered to paint to a child under 3 years old. Foam rubber or cotton swabs are sometimes used instead of a brush. With their help, you get an excellent dot painting of the picture.
Outline drawings for children satisfy their desire to learn about the world around them. By coloring pictures, the child experiments with color and gradually gets acquainted with creativity. Simple and complex coloring pages develop preschoolers' imagination and make them more assiduous.
Cockatoo for coloring is suitable for children 4-6 years old:
Preschoolers aged 6-8 can master the general scheme of drawing birds:
- In the center of the paper, draw the body in the form of a horizontal oval.
- A small oval head is attached to it from above using non-straight lines.
- On the body there is an oval wing with an angle at the end.
- An eye and a triangular beak are drawn on the head.
- A tail and paws are added to the body.
- They color the picture, which has been previously outlined.
For older preschoolers, the diagrams are often accompanied not only by step-by-step drawing instructions, but also by a color image of the bird (see above).
Here is a template that is very suitable for embroidery (see above).
Sea creatures
You can color the inhabitants of the oceans and seas at your own discretion, using your imagination. But if you remember what colors they actually have, you will get even more realistic images. In any case, children develop creative perception.
A child of 1.5-2 years old can sprinkle simple coloring pages with sea creatures with semolina or salt after filling them with color. This method produces very interesting stains and patterns, which also greatly motivates children to further creative activities.
A drawing for tracing and subsequent coloring for older preschoolers can also be embroidered on fabric or cardboard.
And such a stencil is easy to fill with wax crayons (see above).
Insects
Gradually studying the world around them, children get acquainted with its various inhabitants, for example, insects. For younger preschoolers, these little representatives of the fauna are depicted in coloring books as cartoon bees or butterflies.
Along with coloring the pictures of insects, children are also asked to complete half of them or complete tasks provided, for example, in copybooks.
Older preschoolers are given stencils and templates with the suggestion to draw the path of small inhabitants to leaves or flowers. Outline pictures of insects can also be used as patterns for embroidery.
Flowers and other plants
Plants and flowers, drawn in dotted lines in coloring books, should be traced by children and then filled with color.
It will be very interesting for a child to create an outline drawing himself using bright markers or pencils. By doing such actions, children learn to control their own hands and brain. It is advisable to offer them to color the outlined pictures not with random movements, but with the help of shading.
Stencils of plants and flowers are found not only in children's books, but also in or on:
- doll clothes;
- crafts;
- coloring books;
- design;
- cartoons;
- advertising.
Among the flower templates for children, the following are widely used:
- seasonal bouquets;
- images with long stems;
- silhouettes with shadows.
A child of 5-7 years old can be trusted to create stencils on floral and other themes. At this age, he or she is already fully proficient with scissors. Children are happy to cut out a flower or plant drawing chosen at their discretion and use it further for its intended purpose.
Cartoon, fairy tale, anime characters
Coloring books with such a theme further encourage children to engage in developmental activities. After all, preschoolers are given the opportunity to work with their favorite characters from fairy tales and cartoons. And stencils and drawings for tracing with anime characters also act as an anti-stress.
While working on coloring cartoon and fairy tale characters, children:
- learn about the world around them;
- empathize;
- have fun and learn to help each other;
- get acquainted with justice and friendship;
- have a great time;
- enjoy their creativity.
Transport
Younger and older preschoolers of both sexes love to color black and white images of transport in bright colors.
Therefore, outline drawings with such a theme can be:
- simple;
- complex;
- with stickers;
- by numbers or points;
- in the form of introductory stencils.
By tracing pictures of transport, children learn to analyze their actions. This topic will be especially useful for boys who are not particularly assiduous. Airplanes and cars will arouse their real interest.
Coloring pages with different types of transport for small children will be to their liking:
- curious;
- inquisitive;
- active;
- fidgets.
The children will get acquainted with:
- huge planes;
- space and sea vessels;
- lightning fast cars;
- agricultural and passenger transport.
Older preschoolers can use hand-cut transport templates to:
- volumetric drawing;
- coloring;
- creating crafts and decorations;
- embroidery and appliques.
In selections for independent study, you can find transport such as:
- ambulance;
- passenger car;
- racing;
- police officer;
- cargo;
- firefighter;
- air;
- nautical.
Children's contour schemes for drawing transport are created from simple geometric figures familiar to the child from an early age:
- parallelepipeds;
- circles;
- squares;
- rectangles.
Other interesting topics of contour drawings
Children will also be interested in the following contour drawing topics:
- New Year;
- food and drinks;
- items of footwear and clothing;
- sports;
- seasonal fun;
- alien;
- patterns and ornaments;
- festive;
- toy;
- fruit and vegetable;
- natural.
Children's outline drawings can be:
- make voluminous;
- trace over the shadow;
- depict on film;
- color and outline with very long brushes;
- fill with color using your palms or feet;
- trace by holding the brushes in the mouth and turning the head;
- paint by blowing paint out of a cocktail straw.
Exercises with contour images improve motor coordination and also teach precise and rhythmic activity. Regular classes with such drawings lead to the best development results. For children, this creativity becomes an excellent and useful pastime.
Author: tanyda
Video about contour drawing
Outline drawings for kids: