First Coloring Book

Although his friends have coloring books, I have held off on buying one because I never ran across one that wasn't with licensed characters designed to make kids want more stuff. We were at the locally-owned children's bookstore to buy a couple of presents and I found a beginner's coloring book that has lessons that are more directed in the respect that they build on a two-year-olds ability to control a crayon.  

The book is published by Kumon and each page has a different theme.  The first two are shown above.  In the one on the left he was instructed to color in catsup on the omelette. In the one he is working on he was to draw spaghetti on the girl's plate.  He thought both activities were fun and returned to both of them several times over the next day or so.  After a few more pages of scribbling type activities it moves onto coloring a shape that is white in the middle of something. For example, there is a yellow lemon with a white triangle in the middle.  One is asked to color in the triangle.  

Before any of you think this is too academic for just coloring, I want to say that the approach is quite laid back and tells caregivers to let kids color the activities however they like and with whatever colors they choose.  Linus seems to like that there is an activity to do, rather than just color pictures.  He gets to contribute to the picture.  In the picture of the girl sitting at the dinner table with the spaghetti, Linus asked why she had a grownup glass.  He calls wine glasses that because whenever he wants a drink of my wine I tell him it is a grownup drink.  I couldn't think of a good answer other than that maybe she was drinking juice out of the glass for a special occasion.