Give a pencil two big eyes and a tiny smile and small children will suddenly want to color it in. That's the whole idea behind our Back to School Kawaii coloring pages, where every backpack, lunchbox and clock has a face on it. Each design is a free printable you can download as a PDF in US Letter or A4.
All 55 pages are drawn for under-fives, with the oversized heads, round bodies and thick outlines that make this style so easy for small hands. You'll find animal-shaped backpacks, a smiling bento box, kawaii cats at their desks and a set of animal pupils with tiny backpacks of their own.
Parents use these for children who find plain object pages a bit dull, and they're popular with older siblings who like the style already. If your child enjoys these, our Kawaii Cats coloring pages and School Supplies coloring pages are the obvious next stop.
🖍 Coloring Tip:Soft pastel shades suit this style better than bold ones, so try pale pink cheeks and a mint green background rather than filling everything in strongly.
Kawaii rice ball with a seaweed band and a happy face
🖍 Coloring Tip:On the animal backpacks, color the ears and the face a slightly lighter shade than the bag itself so the animal shape stays easy to see.
5 creative projects kids can make with Back to School Kawaii coloring pages
These use paper, scissors and glue, and a couple of them turn into things your child can carry around with them. Nothing here needs a craft shop.
Make a sheet of homemade stickers
Kawaii characters are small and round, which makes them ideal for cutting out as stickers. Color a page, cut each character out, and stick a loop of double-sided tape on the back of each one.
They go on notebooks, lunchboxes, water bottles and the front of a pencil case.
You'll need:
Two or three kawaii pages
Crayons or coloring pens
Scissors
Double-sided tape or sticky label paper
How to do it:
Print onto sticky label paper if you have it, or plain paper if not
Color each character and cut closely around the outline
Add a loop of double-sided tape to the back of each one
Keep them on a spare sheet of paper until they're needed
Cut around the outside of the whole shape rather than following every little curve, or the arms tear off.
Decorate a real pencil case
Cut out a few characters and glue them onto a plain fabric or plastic pencil case, then cover the whole thing with clear tape so they survive the term. A plain case from a supermarket becomes something your child actually recognizes as theirs.
The panda backpack and the sleepy notebook work particularly well because they're wide and flat.
You'll need:
A plain pencil case
Two or three colored kawaii pages
Scissors and glue
Wide clear tape
How to do it:
Color and cut out three or four characters
Arrange them on the case before gluing anything down
Glue them in place and press flat until dry
Cover the whole side with overlapping strips of clear tape
Do one side only, so the case still closes properly.
Mix up the faces and bodies
Cut the faces off several characters and the bodies off several others, then swap them around to make new ones. A sleepy face on the bus, a surprised face on the apple, a winking face on the globe.
The shelf of five books with five different expressions is the best page to cut the faces from.
You'll need:
Four or five kawaii pages
Scissors
Sticky tack so pieces can be moved around
How to do it:
Color the pages first, then cut the faces away as small ovals
Keep the faces in one pile and the bodies in another
Use sticky tack so faces can be lifted off and swapped again
Ask your child to name each new character they invent
It also teaches which expression means what, which is more useful than it sounds.
Build a paper lunch to play with
The bento box with its four sections, the rice ball, the milk carton and the sandwich can all be cut out and used as pretend food. Your child packs the box, unpacks it, and packs it again.
Toy animals or dolls make good customers if you want it to last longer than five minutes.
You'll need:
The bento box page plus three or four kawaii food pages
Crayons
Scissors
A shallow box or a paper plate to hold it all
How to do it:
Color and cut out the bento box, keeping the sections as one piece
Cut out each food item separately
Glue the bento box onto card so it doesn't bend
Let your child arrange the food into the sections however they like
Print a second set of food so there's enough for two lunchboxes.
Learn the kawaii face and draw your own
There's a simple formula behind every page here - two large round eyes set wide apart, a small curved mouth low down, and two little circles for cheeks. Point it out, then let your child add the same face to their own drawings.
They'll start putting faces on everything, which is exactly what happened in Japan in the first place.
You'll need:
Two or three kawaii pages to look at
Blank paper
A pencil and crayons
How to do it:
Look at three pages together and spot what all the faces have in common
Draw a big simple shape on blank paper - a shoe, a cup, a cushion
Add two large round eyes wide apart, then a small mouth underneath
Finish with two small circles for cheeks
Their own drawings usually end up better than anything you'd hand them.
Kawaii started with handwriting. In the 1970s Japanese schoolchildren began writing in a rounded, bubbly style with little faces drawn into the words, and it spread so quickly that some schools tried to ban it. The style stuck around anyway, and the cute characters came afterward.
That's the last of the school pages - head back to our full Back to School coloring pages collection for the rest of the term.
Words to know about Kawaii
Some of these words come from Japanese, where this whole drawing style began.
Kawaii - the Japanese word for cute, used for round characters with big friendly eyes.
Bento - a packed lunch in a box split into small sections, one for each kind of food.
Onigiri - a triangle of rice wrapped in a strip of seaweed, eaten as a snack in Japan.
Chibi - a drawing style that gives a character a very large head and a tiny body.
Mascot - a friendly character that stands for a school, a team or a shop.
Emoticon - a small face built out of simple shapes that shows how someone is feeling.
Coloring Pages FAQ
What print settings make the page fit properly?
Set paper size to Letter or A4 and use “Fit to Page” (or 100% scale) so the design prints within the printable area.
Do these coloring pages cost anything to download or print?
No - they’re free to download and print for personal use.
Do you update Crafty Josh with new printables regularly?
Yes - new pages and categories are added often.
Can I share the finished results online?
Yes - sharing completed artwork is encouraged, and tagging us is always welcome but not required.
Do I have to sign up to download these coloring pages?
No - you can download or print without creating an account.
