Melissa & Doug My First Paint With Water Coloring Book: Animals (24 Painting Pages)

My preschooler loved this book. Comes with a paintbrush.

Easter basket stuffer for my toddler. I love that this is a mess free option for my little to get creative and easy to use

I work with a group of children from 1 to 10 years old. The kids LOVE it when I bring these pictures for them to paint. If there is a spill, not problem, they are working with water. The pictures are cute. Most important thing is, the kids enjoy them.

The purchase of this was for my grandson & granddaughter (too young now). I hope they will be used on days when weather keeps them inside. They look very nice, big spaces for the kids to get used to staying in the lines.

Lovely animal scenes! This is one of the best paint with water books I've gotten for my daughter. It's the best alternative to using actual paints. Before applying water the scenes are so cute to look at with shapes, stripes, and color variation. Not only is it nice to see an array of animals doing interesting things, but I love that the scenes are made up of almost only primary colors! My 6 year old has a lot of fun guessing what the result color will be when water combines the colors. Most pages have large areas so there's less risk of color spreading to other details, but the directions do suggest painting with water only in the largest sections if the child is less able to stay in the lines. For the most part you'd have to really brush and mix across the lines for it to be an issue. I would highly suggest putting a paper towel between the page you're working on and the next page because the paper can get a bit saturated (or you can tear out the page being colored). Great for gifting and travel! I even bought another scene book as my daughter loved this painting activity!

Easy to use, bright colors, and very cute. The paint has cleaned up easily from all surfaces with the antibacterial hand wipes we keep on hand. It does stain skin a bit, but I would expect that with paint.

The pictures are good and the quality of the paper is good so it doesn't rip with toddlers use. The paintbrush however is the cheapest possible and holds little water and is difficult for small hands to hold as it is very thin and all bristles are chopped off at same length. Would be very simple to make this a five start product as the item is very well priced as Melissa and Doug products go. If it went up 50c to include a good brush so you can actually swish the colors into one another and get a watercolor type painting, it would be great. Very therapeutic for an adult to finish if the little one gives up early too!Edit April 9, 2025: I have now used this with my grandson several times and the biggest issue it the paint when water is added to the page, stains hands and clothes just like the food color dyes. Our fingers usually clear after a full two days of washing hands and baths. That would have me remove another star for sure!

These pages are pre-printed with the watercolor paint so all you need is water to paint! The paint is printed in halftones and the image lines so there is no palette your child has to go back and forth from. Your child can Just dip his brush in water and then start painting the image! Kids can even dip their finger in water and paint with their finger! Easy to pack for traveling as it comes with a brush. Clean up is easy since all you need is a cup of water, and a little soap if your child decides to ‘finger-paint’. This brand is the best I’ve found of these ‘pre-printed paint’ books as there is plenty of color printed on each page. My 17month old grandson delighted to see the paint get brighter and fill in the page!