Coloring by Number With Kids: Easy Pictures, Taking Turns and Pet Photos

Color by number is one of the easiest creative activities to share with a child. The rule fits in one sentence, the picture appears as you go, and there is nothing to spill. daubday is a general-audience website rather than an app made for children, so this guide is written for the grown-up in the room: you choose the pictures, set up the device, and handle photos and sharing. There is no account to create, nothing to install and nothing to buy.

Start with an Easy picture

Every picture in the gallery is generated at one of three levels, which change how many shapes it has and how much its smallest pieces are merged. The label under each card then comes from the finished picture: Easy means fewer than 30 areas, Medium fewer than 60, and Detailed more. Next to it you'll see the number of colors, as in "Easy · 7 colors". Fewer areas means a picture a child can finish, and fewer colors keeps the numbers small for someone still learning them.

Some themes are reliably gentle. On the theme pages, nearly all Cat, Fruit and Seaside pictures are labelled Easy, with around ten colors or fewer. Space, Butterfly and Bird pictures are mostly Easy, with some larger ones mixed in. Hot-Air Balloons are mostly Medium, a good next step. City Night, Mandala, Patchwork and Korean Pattern pictures are usually Detailed, so save those for later.

The picture of the day varies in difficulty. The Past pictures tab in the gallery lists it first with its label. Surprise me can land on any theme, Detailed ones included.

Themes children tend to like

• Cat: a big face with ears, eyes, a nose and cheeks. Some cats are sleepy, some wear a collar, and guessing which cat you'll get is part of the fun.
• Space: a ringed planet, stars and often a rocket. The dark sky gives a big, easy area to start with.
• Fruit: apples, oranges, pears and grapes in a bowl. Name each fruit together before coloring it.
• Hot-Air Balloons: striped balloons over the hills. The stripes repeat, so children start spotting the pattern.

On a butterfly picture, ask your child to find the matching spot on the other wing.

Sitting together and taking turns

Sit side by side with one device; a tablet gives small fingers more room than a phone. A few ways to share the work:

• Tapper and helper. The child taps; you zoom with two fingers and move the picture.
• One color each. Take turns choosing a color and filling all its areas. When a color is finished, its circle shows a check mark and the next color is selected, a natural moment to swap.
• Big and small. The child fills the large areas while you find the tiny ones with Hint, which zooms to the largest unfilled area of the selected color and circles it.

Mistakes are harmless. Tapping an area of another color paints nothing; a message such as "That's color 7" appears and the number flashes red, which you can turn into a number game. There is no undo button, but since only correct taps paint, nothing needs undoing.

Children also love drag-painting on touch screens. When zoomed in, a drag that starts on an area of the selected color fills every matching area the finger passes over, leaving other colors alone.

Each picture saves its own progress in the browser, so siblings sharing a tablet can each have their own picture, say Cat 3 and Cat 5. There is no button to start a picture over, so if both want the same one, give them neighboring pictures instead.

Keep sessions short

An Easy picture is a sensible size for one sitting. If attention runs out, simply stop: progress saves automatically, and the home page lists unfinished pictures under In progress. The timer at the top only shows elapsed time, with no score or penalty, so you can ignore it. If you can, end on a finished picture. The short replay that follows makes a natural "all done" moment.

A puzzle from the family pet

Children often love coloring their own pet. On the My photo page, choose a close-up with a plain background, then try Colors at 6 to 8, Detail on Easy and Smoothing on More to calm the fur. Moving the Colors slider together and watching the preview change is fun in itself.

Even at those settings, photos usually come out at a few dozen areas or more, longer than an Easy gallery picture, so plan two or three short sessions, or take the small areas yourself. Picking a good photo makes the biggest difference.

Sharing the replay with grandparents

When the last area is filled, daubday replays the picture in the order it was colored. Save video saves that replay as a short timelapse where the browser supports it, Save image keeps the finished picture, and Share opens your phone's share sheet with the image and a short result text.

For a picture of the day, the link in that text opens the same picture, so grandparents can color it too. A photo puzzle's link opens only on your device, so send the saved image or video instead.

Privacy, in brief

daubday never asks for a name, an email address or an account. Progress is stored in the browser on your device, and pet or family photos are processed there and never uploaded. You can remove a photo puzzle with Delete on the My photo page. Like many free websites, daubday uses analytics and is supported by Google ads, both of which use cookies; the Privacy Policy, linked at the bottom of the site, has the details. A finished picture leaves the device only when you press Share or send a saved file yourself, one more reason to keep that part with the grown-up.