Grid Coordinates: Color the Squares to Find the Hidden Picture

This 2nd grade grid-coordinates worksheet shows an empty eight-by-eight grid with letters A to H across the top and numbers 1 to 8 down the side, and beside it a tiny worked example — a three-by-three grid with B2 shaded — so the child sees what a code means before starting. Below the grid a key lists codes in color groups: a blue swatch followed by chips reading F6, D4, C4 and twenty more, then a yellow swatch with D3. The child finds each square by running a finger across to the letter and down to the number, colors it in that group's color, and a boot or a bird or a pair of cherries slowly appears.

Naming a square by a letter and a number is the first step toward coordinates on a graph, maps with grid references, and spreadsheets — all of which use the same across-then-down habit. The codes within each color are shuffled, so the child cannot simply color row by row; every code has to be looked up. The mistake to watch for is reading B2 as row B, column 2, which puts squares in the wrong place and bends the picture, and the picture bending is what tells the child something is off. A teacher can see the error from the pattern of stray squares before the child says anything.

Print the PDF free and let the child cross out each code chip after coloring its square, so nothing gets colored twice or missed. The easier version uses a six-by-six grid and fewer codes; the harder version goes to ten-by-ten with up to four colors and more than thirty codes. The copy the grid picture page is the kindergarten ancestor of this one, where squares were matched by position without codes, and the symmetry drawing page is another way of building a picture square by square.