12 Panda Coloring Pages (Free Printable PDFs)

One animal, many moods

The easy sheets each tell a small story. In the panda at school, a cheerful student with a backpack writes ABC and 123 on the chalkboard, with an apple, a globe and a full bookcase nearby. The panda in a tree sits in the fork of a wide trunk and waves a sprig of bamboo near a bird and its nest. The panda eating bamboo leans on a mossy rock with its eyes shut, happy to chew, with spare stalks waiting on its lap.

The kawaii panda is the cutest of the group, with huge shiny eyes and a small heart on its head. Our plain panda page has a round panda sitting in a bamboo forest with a green stalk in its paws.

Two pages lean closer to the real animal. The giant panda has a shaggy coat and stops on a rocky mountain trail to look back at you. The red panda stands on a mossy branch with its long ringed tail hanging down. It is the one page here with no black and white coat, and it uses warm rust colors.

Then the set takes a sharp turn. The panda mandala puts a panda face at the center of rings of petals and beads, with eight small cubs around it. The zentangle panda is filled with scales, diamonds, rings and leaf patterns, and those two take real time.

Black, white and a whole lot of green

Pandas are simple in one way: you need only a few colors. Pandas are tricky in another way, since black crayon smears. Do the green bamboo and the sky first. Save the black patches for last, and rest your hand on a clean sheet of paper so you do not drag dark wax across the white fur.

Plain black can look heavy, so try dark blue or dark brown for the ears, the arms and the legs. Either one still reads as black from a few feet away. Go slowly around the eyes, since those small white shine marks are what make a panda look awake.

Do not leave the white parts blank if you want more depth. A light touch of gray or pale blue under the chin and along the belly makes the body look round. On the giant panda, use short strokes that follow the shaggy coat.

Bamboo looks better with more than one green. Use a yellow green for the stalks, a dark green for the leaves and a thin dark band at each joint. Pale green stalks in the back and bright ones in front will give the forest some depth.

For the red panda, start with orange, go over it with a reddish brown and keep the face marks white. Use dark brown on the legs. The tail has rings, so switch between dark and light as you go down. Rainbow pandas are welcome too, of course. It is your paper.

A background helps a white coat stand out. Run pale blue sky or soft green grass right up to the panda's edge, and the fur will have a clean outline. On the mandala, choose three colors and repeat them ring by ring. On the zentangle, finish one small patch before you start the next.

Giant panda or red panda?

The two share a name, but they are very different animals. Set the giant panda and the red panda side by side and make a chart with two columns. Your child can list what they see, such as the size of each body, the color of the coat and the long ringed tail on just one of them.

A few plain facts help here. Giant pandas are bears, they live in the mountains of China, and they eat mostly bamboo. Red pandas are much smaller and belong to a family of their own, and they eat a lot of bamboo too. Both spend time in trees, as the panda in the tree shows. A newborn giant panda is pink and very tiny, so it looks nothing like the cub on the family page. That fact tends to get a big reaction in class.

Panda coloring pages by age

• Ages 3 to 5: The kawaii panda, the baby panda and the balloon panda have large shapes. Balloons are also a nice way to practice color names.
• Ages 5 to 8: The family, the school and the tree pages add a little more to fill around the panda.
• Ages 6 to 12: The giant panda and the red panda bring in fur and shading.
• Ages 10 and up: Start the mandala first, since its rings make a clear plan. Teens and adults can move on to the zentangle.

Save and print

Press PDF on a card for a single sheet. Press Download all at the top of this page to get every panda in one file, one drawing on each sheet. The pages fit US Letter paper. On A4, pick Fit to page in the print box. To fill in a panda on a phone, tablet or computer, press Color. Regular copy paper is fine for crayons, but use a heavier sheet for markers on the two detailed designs.

Small details that start a story

Look past the panda on each sheet and you will find a tiny plot. The balloon panda drifts over a tiny village and waves. Who lives in those small houses, and what do they think when a panda waves at them? Older kids can write the news story for the town paper.

The bird and its nest near the tree panda could be the start of a friendship, or a fight over the best branch. On the school page, take a pencil and change what the chalkboard says. Your child can add their own name or a math problem for the panda to solve. And the sleepy panda by the mossy rock has spare bamboo saved on its lap, so ask who it might be saving those stalks for.

Panda ideas for home and school

Count together. Find seven balloons, then name each color. The mandala has eight cubs, so older kids can circle each one as they finish it.

The family page is an easy talk starter. Ask your child to name all four pandas and say who is who. They can write the names on the back, or draw one more family member in the empty grass.

Teachers can hang the panda at school on a classroom door for the first week back, with each student adding a name on a paper bamboo leaf. A book corner can use the same idea with a short reading goal. For a quick science link, ask students to look up what pandas eat and where they live, then write down two things they found.

Cut the plain panda page into six squares for a small puzzle, or fold the sheet into a card for a friend who loves pandas.

Every page is free for home and class use under our free use license. If your child wants more bears and friends, try our animal coloring pages. Those who loved the big eyes should see our kawaii coloring pages.

Questions