Coloring Books and coloring pages 

I'm just wondering how everyone handles coloring books. I have a 3 yr old dcg who loves to color... but I have noticed that she only likes to color a very tiny section and then rip the page out and move to the next page.... I know coloring books are not that expensive... but after her ripping 4 pages out and coloring one little thing (doesn't touch the back of the page) I've now asked her to color more on the page. 

Do you let them only color a small section and move on to the next page or ask they color a little more? What kinds of coloring books do you have?

I would take the page out that she wants to color, and tell her when she is finished the picture, then she can pick a new one.

I did take her first picture out and now she's just ripped them out like she can do it.. normally she asks. When she showed me the first picture I said she did a great job but there is more she could color and she said she was "done" and wanted another... so I suggested she turned the page over and color it. I thought she did until I heard her ripping pages.

I don't do coloring books. I like the kids to draw. They might scribble at first...but they start getting very creative in actually producing their own pictures. Another thing I do....I have a light board. I put a color sheet on the white board (usually something printed off the computer) and then the kids lay another blank piece of paper over it and trace the picture. Today they made tarantulas. They love this!

I no longer use coloring books but in the past when I did, I limited the number of pages per day they were allowed to use. For EXACTLY the reasons you stated...I got tired of them wasting the pages and wanting to use/waste so many without actually using them for more than a few scribbles. So I started to limit them, for example they could color 2 pages per day (front and back) and if they wanted to color more, they got plain paper. Now I only use plain paper and do not allow coloring books at all.

Actually, I just have a stack of coloring books (15 or so) that I bought at Dollar Tree. I do not allow them to rip the pages out. Every great once in a while I will let a big kid have their page if they finish it but the littles don't remove the pages. My kiddos tend to just color anything. Even if the picture has already been colored on. I buy 3-5 new coloring books at Christmas time and weed out a couple of old ones. More Information here coloring pages

One activity that keeps my kiddos busy for hours is whiteboards. You can buy 81/2 x 11 at Walmart for $4 each and packs of 8 markers for $5. I also buy erasers so we don't waste paper towels. I just replaced the markers after 2 years of use and picked up a couple of new boards and erasers. 

I have tons of coloring books (my mom gave me lots) well, when I rearranged my room, I went thru them and found that pictures where half colored. So my new rule is, is that I'm in charge of the books and I rip out the pictures, so they have to ask for another picture. the problem with letting them draw whatever they want on blank paper was that I would get kids who would do a couple of scribbles and then want another one and then cry when I said no. Also I found plain paper more money than coloring books.

I have a doodle pad for each kid with their names on it. If they want to go through it and use the whole thing in one week, that's their option but they are told that that's what they get and when it's gone it's gone. I noticed that when it's their "own", they seem to be a little more conservative with paper waste!

Doesn't anybody stock up on the .15 notebooks at back-to-school time? I'm going to use these, as someone in another post mentioned awhile back, then each child will get their own notebook to color in until they use it up and it's on 15 cents! May not look so pretty with the lines, but I'm sure the kids could get over it. I also like coloring books though, but do like the 2 page limit per day. They still add up in cost even at a buck a piece.