“Whenever I have found myself stuck in the ways I relate to things, I return to nature. It is my principal teacher, and I try to open my whole being to what it has to say.”
– Wynn Bullock
Brrr! It’s cold outside and now that the novelty of snow has worn off and temperatures are plummeting into the negative numbers, my kids do not want to be outside right now. Days like these, I brew up a batch of Spicy Cocoa and break out the coloring books and crayons. It’s great fun to color and they get to learn a bit about herbs while they are doing it! There are some great coloring books available and these are a few of my favorites:
Medicinal Plants of North America: A Flora Delaterre Coloring Book by Beth Judy
We just love Flora Delaterre! Created by Beth Judy, her website is a wealth of herbal information in bite sized pieces. She extended that to this her coloring book which features 14 herbs found in North America.
A Kid’s EcoJournal with Nature Activities for Exploring the Season by Toni Albert
This series includes winter, spring, summer and fall. While they are not coloring books, they are a great way to introduce nature into your life with seasonally appropriate activities and journaling exercises. There is also an accompanying EcoPrints: A Complete Kit for Writing About Nature package that can be purchased and has some great writing prompts for those wanting to incorporate more nature into their other activities.
Dover Coloring Books
I just love the variety Dover Coloring Books offers! There are so many to choose from, they make a great addition to our herbal learning resources.
Our favorites include:
Common Weeds Coloring Book
Trees of the Northeast Coloring Book
Medicinal Plants Coloring Book
Favorite Wildflowers Coloring Book
Herbs Coloring Book
Mushrooms of the World Coloring Book
Young botanists might also enjoy the Botany Coloring Book.
Check out the complete plant related coloring book list on our website.
Wild Foods and Animals Coloring Book by Linda Runyon
Linda Runyon has created many delightful books on the foraging aspect of plants. Her coloring book is great fun, pairing up animals with the plants.
Children’s Permaculture Guild A B C’s Coloring Book
Annual subscribers get a revised edition (created with Roman’s permission) but the pages are available on the Children’s Permaculture website for free. The revised edition is bigger, with one picture per page instead of four.
USDA Wildflower and Noxious Weeds Coloring Pages
Free online coloring pages of wild plants. Lots to choose from! You can print off single pictures or entire coloring books, they have 7 coloring books to choose from and over 60 single pages available.
Herbal Roots zine
And of course, Herbal Roots zine always has lots of coloring and activity pages in every issue! There are typically 10 pages of activities including a maze, crossword puzzle, word search, word scramble, botany matching, coloring page and more, plus 2 journaling pages and a page to add a plant pressing in each issue.
What are your kids’ favorite herbal coloring and activity books?