On this page
This orange coloring page has one big, round orange sitting on a cutting board in a sunny kitchen. It has a star shaped top, a single leaf and a wide open smile. To the left you will see a full slice and a half slice leaning together. To the right stands a tall glass of juice with a straw and a little slice on the rim. A tiled wall, a window, three jars on a shelf and a rail of cooking tools fill out the room.
Ages 3 to 8 can all enjoy it. The orange is a giant circle, so it is about the friendliest shape on the site for small hands. The slices take more care. Most kids will finish in 20 to 30 minutes.
Color choices for a bright kitchen
The fruit should be the loudest thing on the page, so keep the wall calm. A soft mint or pale blue for the tiles looks fresh next to orange. Blue and orange are opposite colors, which is why each one makes the other seem brighter. That is a neat lesson for an older child to test.
Try these for the rest of the room:
- Window frame and cutting board: warm brown
- Curtain at the top of the window: sunny yellow
- Jar lids: one orange, one yellow, one red
- Spoon rail: gray, with a tan wooden spoon in the middle
- Cupboards: cream with white panels, or a bold teal if you like
Three small tricks
The little dots on the orange stand for the tiny pits in real peel. Color right over them. They are dark enough to show through.
Slices can feel fiddly, so give each wedge one quick stroke and move on. Nobody needs to fill those points perfectly. Colored pencils work better than markers on this section.
Tile walls take a long time if you do each square. Use the flat side of a crayon with the paper removed and sweep across several squares at once. If your child wants a pattern, color every other tile and leave the rest white. It looks like a checkerboard and goes twice as fast.
Why an orange is more than it seems
Oranges have a surprising family story. The orange is a cross between two older fruits, the mandarin and the pomelo. Sweet oranges came from an area that covers southern China, northeast India and Myanmar, and Chinese writing mentioned them as far back as 314 BC.
Plant scientists call the fruit a hesperidium, a kind of changed berry. A typical orange has about ten segments inside. The color got its English name from the fruit, too, with the first known use dated 1512. The Wikipedia article on the orange has the full history.
A snack time activity
Peel a real orange together and have your child guess the number of segments before you open it. Write the guess down, then count. Try a second orange and see if the number changes.
Teachers can use this for a small graph. Each table counts one orange, and the class marks the totals on the board. Finished coloring pages make a cheerful border around the chart.
Tips for printing the orange coloring page
Regular printer paper is fine for crayons and pencils. Card stock is the better choice if the finished picture will hang in the kitchen, as it stays flat on the fridge. To save ink, print the orange coloring page in draft mode, since the lines are bold and still come out dark. Got more than one child at the table? Print a copy for each one, then compare the results. Two kids will rarely choose the same wall, and that makes a nice talking point at dinner. Tablet users can tap the Color online button and skip the printer.
Where to go from here
Browse all of our fruit coloring pages for more kitchen and farm friends. The lemon coloring page is a close cousin with a seaside view. Hungry kids may also like the fruit basket coloring page.
Questions
How do I keep orange crayon from looking pale?
Press a little harder and color in small circles. A second layer over the first makes the color much richer.
What goes inside the orange slices?
Use a light orange or yellow for the wedges, then leave the thin ring just inside the peel almost white, as it looks on the real fruit.
Can I print two copies on one sheet?
Yes. Most print menus have a setting for two pages per sheet. The shapes are large enough to stay easy to color at that size.
