‘Tis the season for free Florida coloring books and free Florida parks. Put them together with children on school break looking for things to do and – oh my, road trips coming up!
Combine seeing the real thing with these coloring books – have adventures and make memories.
Let’s get going:
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection oversees 41 aquatic preserves- springs and rivers, marshes and seagrass meadows. These vital habitats are bird rookeries and fish nurseries and great places to visit.
Rainbow Springs State Park in Dunnellon, not far from Ocala is an aquatic preserve, thank goodness, saved so no high rise condominiums, once planed for here, would destroy the river view.
Florida coloring books – some are about aquatic preserves
The headwaters of the Rainbow River offer swimming, snorkeling, canoeing and great flower viewing when the azaleas bloom in Februaryor March. Nearby places offer camping and a launch for tubing down the Rainbow River.
And sure enough, the Florida Coastal Office of DEP has an Aquatic Preserves are Exceptional Activity book, a free PDF download. It is an alphabet book starting off with a lovely drawing of an Anhinga with its wings spread open to dry.
This is my personal favorite among the free Florida coloring books. Bold drawings by Charissa Baker with inviting text by Daria J. Fousek, there is much to talk about and adults may want to pick up crayons too.
Florida coloring books are full of nature & history
Not to be outdone, the Museum of Florida History in Tallahassee has a free download of Exploring Florida Activity and Coloring Book covering 500 years of history, culture and nature.
Save the Manatee has a manatee coloring book for children. In the winter months, roughly November through March, manatees congregate in warmer waters. Good places to see them include Blue Springs State Park near Orange City and Tampa Electric’s Manatee Viewing Center in Apollo Beach.
Manatees that stay year round as they can’t be released are found, among other places, at Ellie Schiller Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park This is an especially nice place to visit for up close and personal look at manatees. Check out the feeding times on the park Web site and be there to see manatees consume enough lettuce to justify their big bulk.
A part of a manatee mural by Wyland at Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park
While visiting, I once saw a big male manatee take the last head of lettuce then get gently bumped by a smaller female manatee. Clearly the message was “you turkey, I wanted that.” Or something similar in manatee speak.
Florida coloring books can often be downloaded for free!
Like sea turtles? The Flower Garden National Marine Sanctuary has a turtle reef coloring page You can see loggerhead turtles at Mote Marine Lab in Sarasota.
The Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission has an animal identification coloring book called All About Alligators and also a manatee coloring book along with sea turtle and lights word sheet.
There you have it.
Go forth and explore natural Florida, color in the pages, hang out with those you love – these are gifts worth giving.
Note: Thank you to my son Chris Tobias for suggesting the coloring books idea. He specializes in keeping kids busy both inside the car and out.
More Florida to Explore
Birders flock to the Great Florida Birding Trail