What is on this coloring sheet
A five point star sits in a night sky on this one, which makes it the darkest sheet in the set and the one that needs the most patience. The star is yellow with an orange heart, its arms reach right across the page, and eight small purple squares sit out at the edges as sparkles. Because the background is the largest area rather than the smallest, this sheet takes longer than the flower or the cat, and it is worth saying so before a young child starts.
How to use it
Print the sheet and color the star itself first, in yellow with an orange middle, then fill the night sky in dark blue around it. The purple squares are small sparkles sitting at the edges of the sky.
Three ways to practice
Count the points
Before coloring, ask how many points the star has. Tracing round the outline with a finger to count five is a real task for a preschooler, and it makes the shape stick better than being told.
Hunt the sparkles
There are eight purple squares and they are the only ones of their color. Finding all of them means checking every edge of the grid, which is careful looking rather than fast coloring.
Split it over two sittings
Color the star one day and the sky the next. The sheet is large enough that a five year old rarely finishes it in one go, and stopping halfway is better than a rushed second half.
A tip worth knowing
The dark blue sky is the biggest job on this sheet by some distance. A colored pencil covers it faster and more evenly than a crayon, and it will not smudge under a hand.
Printing this sheet
Frequently asked questions
Why is so much of this sheet dark blue?
The star sits in a night sky, so the background is the largest area on the page. It makes for a striking finished picture and a longer job than the other coloring sheets, which is the trade.
Will a dark background use a lot of ink?
No. Only the small color key at the top of the page prints in color. The grid itself prints as plain numbered outlines, so the sheet costs about the same to print as any other worksheet.
What are the purple squares for?
They are sparkles in the sky, and they are deliberately scarce. A color that appears only a few times gives a child something to search for rather than something to fill in.