Four animals, each drawn twice. A polar bear in profile on the ice, a snowy owl facing you on a perch, a seal pup lying on a block of ice, and a penguin standing in a bobble hat. The second version of each is built from fewer and larger pieces for younger children. Eight sheets in all, picked one at a time from the buttons above the paper.
The four animals
The polar bear stands side on under a scatter of stars, with the ice edge running under its feet and broken floes in the water below. The snowy owl faces straight out: a round head with a facial disc, two large ringed eyes, a small beak, a folded wing down each side with chevron marks on it, four barred lines across the chest and two feet gripping a perch.
The seal pup lies along a solid block of ice with a ridge of mountains behind it, whiskers at the muzzle, one front flipper tucked under and a tail fluke at the back. The penguin stands on a line of snow in a bobble hat and a ribbed scarf. Every sheet has its own small background, which matters on animals this pale: without the ice and the sky there would be very little on the page to put colour on.
About the penguin
Penguins live at the other end of the world. There are none in the Arctic and there never have been, which a teacher using this set will already know and a child doing the colouring almost certainly will not.
It is in the set because every five year old asked to name an arctic animal says penguin, and a sheet that quietly left it out would be the one they went looking for. If you want to make something of it, a globe and two minutes will do it. If you do not, nobody is harmed by a penguin on the wall.
Eight sheets, one at a time
The Picture row above the paper lists all eight: each animal and then its simpler twin. The simple versions drop the interior detail and keep the silhouette, which is what you want for a nursery group, for a cut-out, or for anyone who finds a sheet of fine lines discouraging.
Line weight runs Chunky, Standard and Fine across all eight, and Redraw changes the stars and the small background pieces rather than the animal. If you are printing a set for a class, work down the Picture row and press Print at each one; there is no need to reload the page between sheets.
Questions
- How many arctic animal colouring pages are there?
- Eight. Four animals, a polar bear, a snowy owl, a seal pup and a penguin, and a simpler version of each one built from fewer and larger shapes. You pick between them from the row of buttons above the paper.
- Do penguins live in the Arctic?
- No. Penguins live in the southern hemisphere, mostly around Antarctica, and polar bears live in the north, so the two never meet in the wild. The penguin is in this set because children expect it there, not because the geography works.
- Which sheets suit a nursery group?
- The four simple versions, with the line weight set to Chunky. They are built from large rounded shapes with the fine interior marks left out, so a thick crayon has somewhere to stop and nothing important disappears under the outline.
- Can I print the whole set in one go?
- Not as a single file, no. Each sheet prints on its own, so work along the Picture row and print at each setting. Printing in greyscale keeps the cost down if you are running all eight for a group.
- Are these free to use at school?
- Yes. Every sheet is free to print and free to save as a PDF, with no account and no watermark, and you may run off as many copies as a class, a nursery or a library session needs.