Free Cheetah Coloring Pages

Cheetahs are the fastest land animals on Earth. They live on the grasslands and open savannas of Africa, with a tiny leftover population in Iran, and they hunt by sprinting after gazelles and hares in short, explosive bursts. Children usually meet them as the spotted cat that always wins the race in a storybook, which is why they are such a popular animal to colour. The real coat is tawny gold or sandy yellow, covered in solid black spots — not the rose-shaped rings a leopard has — with a paler cream belly and two black "tear marks" running from the inner corner of each eye down to the mouth. That is a perfectly good way to colour these sheets. It is also fine to ignore it. A pink cheetah, a rainbow one, or one whose spots are every colour in the crayon box is just as welcome. The tear marks and the solid round spots are the two shapes that make it look like a cheetah rather than a leopard, so those are worth pointing out. The eight designs get steadily harder. First is a chubby cartoon cheetah standing on its hind legs and waving — thick outlines and a huge open belly that suit toddlers still learning to stay inside the lines. Then a sitting cheetah with its tail wrapped around its paws, a running cub with big round eyes, and a stretching, yawning cheetah, all still bold and friendly. After that the drawings become more realistic: one lying down asleep with its spots already filled in, a cheetah sprinting at full stretch, a walking profile covered in spots, and a detailed face portrait with tear marks and whiskers for children who like a longer, careful page. Speed is the thing most children want to talk about. A cheetah can reach about 70 miles per hour (112 km/h) in a few seconds, but only for a short sprint — after that it has to stop and catch its breath. The sprinting sheet is the natural one to colour while talking about that, and it pairs well with the face portrait, which shows the black tear marks that work like sunglasses, cutting the glare so the cheetah can see on the bright grassland. On the sleeping sheet the spots are already filled in, so children colour the coat around them — a useful exercise in staying outside a shape instead of inside one. Every sheet prints on landscape US Letter paper at 200 DPI, so the cheetah fills the page without being cut off. Plain copier paper is fine for crayons and colored pencils. If you are using markers or paint, slightly thicker card stock stops the colour bleeding through — worth doing on the walking and portrait sheets, where the spots sit close together. In the classroom these pages pair well with a lesson on African wildlife, on how animals move, on the letter C, or on the difference between a cheetah and a leopard. Print the walking cheetah next to a lion or tiger page and let children spot which cat has spots, which has stripes, and which has a mane. The waving sheet is finished in a few minutes; the face portrait can fill a quiet stretch of the afternoon. Print a few different designs and let each child pick the one that matches their patience that day. The lion and lioness pages show the cats the cheetah shares its grassland with, and the wider animal set has the rest.