Ask around and one knitted winter hat picks up at least five names: beanie, bobble hat, stocking cap, watch cap and, north of the border, tuque (spelled toque by roughly half the Canadians I’ve asked). Same hat, different argument everywhere.
Our winter hat coloring pages cover nearly every version of it, from a plain striped beanie with one fat pom-pom to a stocking cap so long the tip hangs all the way down to the brim. Then the animals got their paws on them… a hedgehog, an otter, a sloth and a snowy owl.
↓ Scroll to the free printable pagesAll 46 printable winter hat coloring pages are waiting in the grid below, each one its own PDF. The simplest are little more than a dome, a brim and a ball, easy wins for small hands.
Older kids, skip ahead to the mouse house or the pattern page with five hats. Click, print, then go dig up the crayons nobody put away.
Featured Winter Hat Coloring Pages
A cat with extra cat ears on its beanie feels wonderfully silly to me, and those stripes are just begging for a rainbow makeover. I’d give one stripe a completely unexpected color, because even a cozy little kitty deserves a wild fashion choice.
Those long braids and that bobble hat make me think she’s off to find the very best snow for a snowball. I’d give her hat bright rainbow stripes so she’s easy to spot in all that white!
This little snowsuit, boots, and hat laid out on the floor make me smile. Everything’s ready for snow except the child! I’d go for a bright orange suit and a stripy hat, though matching the boots is entirely optional in my book.
These five winter hats are just waiting for bright stripes, cheerful dots, and a pom-pom or two in wonderfully silly colors. I’d be tempted to make each one match a different scarf, though finding five matching hats and scarves in our hallway would be a winter miracle.
I kept the stripes nice and wide on this winter hat so little hands have plenty of room for their favorite colors. That big pom pom is just begging to be rainbow-colored. Matching winter accessories are overrated anyway!
Those round bear ears make this winter hat look extra snuggly, and I’d be tempted to give it a bright red brim. Of course, a purple bear would be perfectly welcome around here too!
I have a soft spot for this little panda hat. It looks like something I’d spend all winter reminding someone not to leave on the playground! I’d keep the panda’s patches black and give the rest a cheerful splash of pink or blue, though rainbow stripes would be hard to resist.
Did you love these winter hat pages?
Winter Collections
Winter Hat Coloring Pages Highlights
Girl in a Bobble Hat Walking in the Snow
She’s mid-stride, braids swinging, fringed scarf on, mittens out, boots sinking into soft drifts while flakes float down around her. A nice pick for kids who’d rather color a person than an object, roughly five and up.
Grown-ups love to warn kids that half their body heat escapes through the head. I’ve never bought it, because that number came out of old army cold-weather tests where the volunteers’ heads were the only part left bare. Wear the hat anyway.
Half-Knitted Hat with Yarn and Needles on an Armchair
Somebody got up mid-row and never came back. Half done, the hat still has both needles poking through its stitches, and a fat ball of yarn waits on the seat of a deep, ribbed armchair.
It’s a still life, really, the sort an art teacher arranges on a table with a lamp aimed at it. Calm and a little nostalgic, it suits older kids, plus any grandma who knits and wants to color alongside them.
Hedgehog with a Tiny Beanie on Its Spines
A round, smiling hedgehog wears a bobble beanie balanced right on top of its spines, with both little paws held up in front. Sweet face, simple shapes, nothing scary about the prickles.
All those spikes make a jagged outline with dozens of small points to fill, decent fine-motor practice for four- to seven-year-olds. And that hat sits so precariously you’d swear one sneeze would send it flying.
Mouse Family Living Inside a Knitted Hat
Basically a dollhouse in disguise. A big cable-knit bobble hat is cut open to show a mouse family at home, with a lamp hanging from the crown and a round window above them.
One parent holds a mug, the other reads a book, and the little one in the middle hugs a teddy bear. Of the whole set, this is the busiest page, the one I’d save for a patient eight-year-old.
Otter in a Pom-Pom Hat Floating in Icy Water
On its back, paws folded, feet up, little hat on, an otter drifts between flat chunks of ice like it has nowhere to be. Loose ripple lines fill the water, so there’s lots of open space to color.
Sea otters really do nap floating like this, and sometimes they hold paws so nobody drifts away. Animal-fact kids get a story to go with their page.
Penguin Chick Wearing Its Parent’s Hat
Enormous hat. It slides down nearly to the chick’s eyes with the pom-pom flopping off to one side, while the penguin underneath just stands there, flippers out, pleased with itself.
Every family owns a photo of a toddler clomping around in a grown-up’s boots, and this is that photo, penguin edition. Big shapes, sturdy lines, preschool-friendly.
Simple Preschool Winter Hat with Stripes
No face, no animal, no scene. Just a dome with a few wide stripes, a chunky ribbed brim and one big pom-pom.
If you need a coloring page of a cute winter hat for the youngest crowd, start here. Lily went over that pom-pom with an orange marker maybe forty times, until the paper turned soft and fuzzy, which I suppose made it a real pom-pom.
Winter Hat Caught on a Pine Branch
A hat with a zigzag band hangs by its very tip from a pine branch, brim swinging free, owner nowhere in sight. Anyone who fishes knows the feeling, a lure dangling from a branch over the creek, close enough to see and impossible to reach.
Probably the most dramatic coloring page winter hat in the set. Kids who like filling a big empty background will have room to play, especially the older ones.
8 Tips for Coloring Winter Hats
Rough Up the Pom-Poms
Nearly every hat in this collection has one, from the snowflake hat to the otter’s, and a pom-pom colored in smooth flat strokes looks like a gumball glued on top. Work from the center out in short flicks that break past the edge here and there, the way a stylist texturizes a cut with thinning shears so it doesn’t sit like a helmet.
French sailors wear a red pompon on their caps, supposedly to cushion their heads against low beams belowdecks, a story I’d file under maybe. Luck is the part that stuck, since people in France still reach out to touch one, so give at least one hat here a red pom-pom for good measure.
Turn the Earflap Hat into a Chullo
Both the kawaii earflap hat and the earflap hat with circles on the pattern page have long ties ending in tiny pom-poms, which is classic Andean chullo style. Chullos come in loud mixes like magenta, orange and turquoise, so go bright on the zigzag band and let the face stay pale.
On Taquile Island in Lake Titicaca, the men do the knitting, and the colors of a man’s chullo traditionally show whether he’s married. Ask your little one what their hat is announcing… single, married, or just very into orange.
Band the Hedgehog’s Spines
Real hedgehog spines aren’t one flat brown, each is banded dark near the skin and creamy toward the tip, and an adult carries around 5,000 to 7,000 of them. Press hard with a brown pencil at the base of every spike, then lift off as you reach the point so the tip stays nearly bare.
Make that tiny beanie loud, cherry red or lime, because a hat that small gets lost in all the speckle. Face and belly can stay soft beige.
Give the Sloth a Little Algae
Sloths move so slowly that algae grows in their fur and tints them faintly green, which helps them hide up in the treetops. Color the sloth tan or gray-brown, then dab uneven patches of pale green pencil across its back and arms, heavier in some spots and missing others entirely.
Those patches around its eyes stay deep brown, since that’s where all of its expression lives. Its slouchy beanie can be any color except green, unless you want the hat and the moss to melt together.
Color the Mouse Family as Deer Mice
Deer mice are famous for moving into stored boots, dresser drawers and, apparently, forgotten hats. They’re warm brown on top with a crisp white belly and feet, and even the tail is two-tone, dark above and white below.
Keep that brown-to-white line sharp on every mouse so the family reads as one family. Go a touch grayer on the little one hugging the teddy, because young deer mice start out gray and only turn brown as they grow.
Match the Half-Knit Hat to Its Yarn
On the armchair page, the half-made hat and the ball of yarn come from the same strand, so they have to share one color. Lean a bit harder on the knitted part than on the ball, since finished stitches pack tighter than loosely wound yarn.
A lot of hat yarn is sold as worsted weight, a name taken from Worstead, a village in Norfolk, England, known for its wool cloth back in the Middle Ages. Needles can be bamboo tan or steel gray, and the armchair should be a color the yarn isn’t.
Ignore the Pink and Blue Rule on the Baby Bonnet
Over on the kawaii hat family page there’s a beanie, a bobble hat and a baby bonnet with a bow under its chin, and somebody at the table will insist the bonnet has to be pink or blue. That rule is younger than it sounds, since a 1918 trade magazine for baby clothes actually recommended pink for boys and blue for girls.
So go mint, lemon or lilac, and give the bow a color nobody else on the page is wearing. Of all the winter hat coloring sheets here, it’s the nicest one to share with a sibling, one hat per kid.
Knit the Snowflake Hat in Flag Colors
Snowflakes and pine trees all over a bobble hat make it a Norwegian ski sweater shrunk to hat size. Norway’s famous Marius sweater, designed in 1953 and named after skier Marius Eriksen, sticks to navy, red and white, the flag colors.
Try the same limit here, navy for the hat, red for every snowflake and tree, white paper for the rest. Only two crayons sounds strict for a free printable winter hat coloring page, but older kids tend to love a rule they can work inside.