Picture Tracing Sheets: Finish the Picture

Two shelves stretch across the page under a row of bunting, and six things wait on them to be mended. On the top shelf there is a toy car, a teapot and an umbrella; on the bottom shelf a cup on its saucer, a spinning top and a bunny. Each picture is drawn in solid lines except for one part, which is dashed: the car's wheels, the teapot's spout, the umbrella's stick and crook, the cup's handle, the point of the top and the bunny's long ears. Tracing that part makes the picture whole.

To finish a picture the child first has to see what is missing, and that looking is as important as the tracing. Ask before tracing: what does the teapot need? Where are the bunny's ears? The missing parts are real, nameable parts rather than random gaps, so the child can talk about them, and each one is long enough to trace properly. Seeing a whole thing in a part of it, and adding the part that completes it, is a skill children use when they read letters and recognize shapes.

This printable PDF suits kindergarten and is a good change from pages where everything is dashed, because most of each picture is already drawn and the child adds only the finishing touch. For a page where a whole half is missing, try the other-half page with a butterfly in an open book. Picture tracing follows the outline of whole pictures; abstract line practice, step-by-step drawing and numbered dot-to-dot have their own pages.