Free Printable Chinese Zodiac Animals Coloring Pages for Kids

These free Chinese zodiac animal coloring pages are a fun, no-prep activity for kids! They're perfect as part of winter theme, Chinese New Year or Lunar New Year theme, or as everyday fun.

I hope your family or students enjoy these Chinese zodiac animal coloring page printables!

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The book The Great Race is the perfect accompaniment to these coloring pages. The Great Race tells the story of the Chinese zodiac animals in simplified Chinese, Pinyin, and English.

Your book purchase includes access to an audio recording in Mandarin to help with pronunciation or to expose your child to the sounds of another language.

The terms Chinese New Year and Lunar New Year are not exactly interchangeable and they've both stirred up controversy in recent years.

People in many parts of Asia, and elsewhere in the world, celebrate the Lunar New Year. The dates are not always the same as the Chinese New Year and each region has its own specific foods and traditions.

According to my friends and family living and working in China, it is appropriate to call the holiday the "Chinese New Year" when speaking about Chinese-specific traditions and their spring holiday.

Materials needed for printable coloring pages

You can print these coloring pages on any cardstock or paper. However, the super thin, cheapest copy paper isn't very durable.

I typically use current favorite inexpensive paper. It's still a bit nicer and brighter than super cheap copy paper, but costs several dollars less than the 32# paper that's my favorite for planners and headband crafts.

Our favorite crayons are Honeysticks beeswax crayons. They're made from pure, food grade wax and colorants and they're chunky for little hands. They actually color better than "normal" crayons.

I'm adamant about selecting natural, safe crayons whenever possible since there have been numerous crayon recalls in the past few years.

The only down side is that Honeysticks do come in a relatively limited color palette. These beeswax crayons have more colors, but are the best choice for preschoolers and older kids because they aren't as chunky as the Honeysticks.

Our favorite colored pencils are Prismacolor. Even the less expensive student line is more soft and creamy than most other colored pencils. They are a joy to color with and have rich colors that children love. Some of our Prismacolors are shown in the photo below.

Our favorite markers for coloring are Crayola Supertips. They come in a lot of colors and wash up pretty well. The ink also lasts much longer than the Crayola "Ultra-Clean Washables" line. (Our Ultra-Clean Washables dried up in just a couple of weeks. It was disappointing.)

Free printable zodiac animal coloring pages

Let's take a quick look at the coloring pages. They are shown in groups to help this page load more quickly, but each animal has its own page in the PDF.

These animal coloring pages are available for personal and single classroom use.

You are not licensed to redistribute the files to other parents/teachers for use with their children/students. Instead, please refer them to this page so they can download their own copy.

I hope you and your little learner enjoy these Chinese zodiac coloring sheets! Make sure to grab these additional Chinese New Year themed freebies while you're here: