Scarecrow Coloring Pages

Friendly scarecrows for little ones

None of these scarecrows is scary. The easy pages have thick outlines and big shapes: a smiling scarecrow on its post with button eyes, patched dungarees and a pumpkin at its feet; a chibi scarecrow waving hello with a leaf; a big scarecrow face with a sunflower in its hat band; a cheeky crow offering a seed to the scarecrow it is supposed to be scared of; and a scarecrow girl with straw pigtails.

Why farmers put up scarecrows

For thousands of years farmers have stood figures in their fields to frighten away the birds that eat seeds and ripening grain. Old clothes stuffed with straw on a wooden cross were cheap to make, and a shirt flapping in the wind looked enough like a person to startle a flock of crows — at least for a while, as the crows perched on the arms in several of these pages suggest. In the autumn many towns hold scarecrow festivals and contests, and one page shows the prize going to a scarecrow dressed as a chef, beside a farmer and a pirate.

Make your own scarecrow

The build-a-scarecrow sheet has every part on its own dashed cutting line: a patched hat, a round head with button eyes and a stitched smile, two checked shirts, a pair of dungarees, two boots, two bundles of straw, a sunflower and a crow. Colour the pieces, cut them out and glue them together on a sheet of card. On another page two children build a real one, stuffing straw into an old shirt while the dog runs off with a piece.

A scarecrow’s busy autumn

The middle pages give the scarecrows a life of their own. One shelters from the rain under a patched umbrella with three field mice, one sits on a hay bale with a mug of cider and a lantern, one reads a picture book to a lamb, a piglet, a duckling and a chick, and one dances a jig by moonlight while an owl watches from its empty post. There is a scarecrow family of three and a scarecrow guarding the cabbages while a rabbit steals a carrot right under its arm.

Detailed scarecrows for adults

The six detailed pages suit pencils. The zentangle scarecrow has a different pattern in every patch of its clothes; the mandala rings a scarecrow face with sunflowers, wheat, pumpkins and crows; the stained glass window sets a scarecrow and two crows against a harvest moon; the doodle page packs little scarecrows, crows, corn, lanterns and leaves around one big smiling face; and two farm scenes show a scarecrow in a pumpkin patch below a barn and apple trees, and an old scarecrow in the cornfield with three crows.

Print the whole set at once

The button at the top of this page bundles all twenty into a single download, so you can print the lot for a class or a harvest festival rather than picking through them one at a time. Every page comes as a PDF in both US Letter and A4.

More autumn pages

For the rest of the season see the fall coloring pages, the Thanksgiving coloring pages, the Halloween coloring pages and the sunflower coloring pages.