Little House
Toddler · 2–3A cozy little house with a triangle roof, a door, and two windows. The big, clear shapes make it easy for toddlers to fill each part. It is a lovely way to talk about homes, shapes (square, triangle), and the places we live. Print it on A4 or US Letter, or color it online with tap-to-fill. A perfect first page for a home or shapes theme at home or in the classroom.
The first thing almost every child draws
A square with a triangle on top is close to a universal in children's drawing — it turns up in roughly the same form whether a child lives in a flat, a bungalow or a tower block, and long before they have ever seen a house that looks like it. That is worth knowing, because it means this page is not really about houses. It is about the two shapes a child already has and what happens when you put one on top of the other.
Which makes it a good page for talking about parts. The walls, the roof, the door, the windows — each is a separate region to fill, and naming them as you go gives a two-year-old four words attached to something they can point at. Let the roof be purple if that is what they want.
Turning it into their house
Once it is coloured, ask what is behind each window and let them tell you. Children will happily populate a generic house with their own bedroom, their grandmother, a dog they do not own. It is a low-effort way into descriptive language, and it works far better than asking a child to describe their actual home from memory.
Frequently asked questions
- Why do all children draw the same house?
- Because it is built from the two shapes they can already make — a square and a triangle — rather than from observation. Drawing from what you know comes before drawing from what you see, usually until around seven.
- What age is this page for?
- Two to four. There are only a handful of large regions, the outlines are thick, and nothing is small enough to be fiddly.