Printable Rooster Crafts for Kids

Ask any children what a rooster says, and they’ll answer “cock-a-doodle-doo.” The rooster is one of the most recognizable animals in any farm unit you do with preschoolers and early elementary kids.

For this article, I’ve created some printable pages that you can use as coloring sheets, decorations, bookmarks, and even lanterns. I’ve focused on using simple shapes that children can easily identify. I’ve included words with large letters on the coloring pages so that children will start to relate the word “rooster” to the pictures. I’ve also included some coloring pages in Spanish.

If your unit calls for hens instead of roosters, just leave out the wattle.

All of the patterns here were created by me (I purchased some of the artwork from iStock), and you have permission to print these templates for personal and educational use. Commercial use is prohibited.

The images are all loaded as photos (jpegs), which means you can click on the pattern image, and then right click to copy it and paste it into a word processing or publishing software. Once you’ve pasted it, you can then enlarge or minimize the image the way you'd like.

Here is an assembled rooster you can print out for the children to color.

With this pattern, I’ve separated all the shapes so that you can trace them and cut them from felt or colored paper and then glue them together. These little roosters make nice tree ornaments.

If you just need something to print and go, these two roosters are already colored in. The first has blue, green, and purple tail feathers; the second has blue, yellow, and green.

This rooster uses shapes that are a little more advanced. I’ve modified a teardrop shapes and put them together to make the tail look a little more realistic.

As I did with the last pattern, I’ve pulled apart the shapes in the next two printables so that you can cut them from colored paper or felt. Keep scrolling down to see a finished sample rooster cut from felt.

Here is the little rooster ornament I made out of felt using the pattern above. I cut two of each of the head and body pieces. Then, I glued the comb, the beak, and the wattle in between the two head pieces. I glued the tail pieces in between the two body segments. If you want to include a string to hang it, you can also loop it and glue between those two pieces.

I cut the eye out of black paper because the felt didn’t seem to give me a crisp enough edge.

If you would like to use real feathers for the tail, the next two templates are designed for that. The first one is assembled (except for the tail), and the second one has all the shapes separated in case you want to cut them from colored paper or felt.

I think my little ones got carried away with the number of feathers, but I wanted to show it so you can see what the finished product might look like. Again, you could attach a piece of ribbon and make this into an ornament for a Christmas or Easter tree.

Scroll down to see several different rooster coloring pages. Remember, they are all loaded as photos, so you can just click to select and then right click to copy and paste into a document. I’ve made it a point to put the word “Rooster” in big letters that the children can color them in. The phrase “Good morning, Mr. Rooster” comes from a song that you can sing with the children.

The lyrics and actions can be found on supersimplelearning.com.

See the bottom of this site to view a video for the song.

The following pages are in Spanish. “El Gallo” mean “The Rooster.” “Buenos dias, Senor Gallo” means “Good morning, Mr. Rooster.” (I’m sorry that the accent and tilde don’t come across in this text here. It’s a limitation of the software.)

You can buy white paper lanterns that are pretty inexpensive, and each child can take home his or her own lantern. I’ve included a rooster face template that they can color in themselves, or you can print out one that has already been colored.

You can print out the features and the children can glue them to the lantern. One note: you’ll want the liquid glue for this. I’ve found that the glue in glue sticks just doesn’t adhere well enough to the lantern.

These lanterns would also be cute decorations for teachers, parents, or librarians to make in preparation for a farm theme.

Here is what the rooster lantern looks like when he’s all put together.

These are template you can print out if you just want a rooster head to put on top of a bookmark or to use as a stick puppet.

The first page has some fairly large templates, good for puppets or little ones that can’t work with small shapes.

The second page has smaller templates that would work well atop a bookmark or in other small places.

Print these on card stock and cut them out to make bookmarks, fastening heads to the top. If you don’t have any popsicle sticks, they will also work for making stick puppets.

I made the bookmark section brown, thinking that they might look like the rooster is hanging out on a fence post.

Ready to become a little more artistic? These patterns allow you, and the children to do a little more embellishing.

Roosters are a great vehicle for you or your children to make their own patterns and use their own color schemes. Lots of fanciful roosters exist in folk art. You can talk with children about different patterns they can use: dots, stripes, checks, stars. They can divide the rooster into pieces and use a different pattern for each piece. And, if you are into Zentangles, you can fill this pattern with those quite easily.

We’ll start with a template that gives you all the features you need to turn a paper plate into a rooster. Just fold the plate in half—or cut it in half if you want to save money—and color tit however you like. Color the beak, comb, wattle, and tail; then glue them onto the body. Color the feet, and attach them to the body with pieces of colorful string or yarn.

Here is a blank template that lets you fill in shapes and patterns however you like.

If you want to cut your rooster from different colors and patterns of paper and felt, here is the template for you.

If you’d like some roosters with patterns already filled in, these are templates you can cut, color, and glue together.

Thanks for taking a look at my rooster article. If you have any suggestions or comments, be sure to add them at the bottom. Happy crafting!