Excavator Coloring Pages

An excavator coloring page is mostly one great shape: a long arm, a toothed bucket and a cab sitting on tracks. In this set the diggers scoop dirt into dump trucks, dig trenches, knock down walls and work at the edge of a river. There are mini excavators small enough for a backyard and giant mining shovels with buckets bigger than a car.

Machines on each excavator coloring page

  • Crawler excavator: the standard digger on steel tracks, which spread its weight so it doesn't sink in mud.
  • Mini excavator: light enough to tow on a trailer and narrow enough to fit through a garden gate.
  • Wheeled excavator: rubber tires in place of tracks, so it can drive on streets without tearing up the pavement.
  • Backhoe loader: a tractor with a wide loader bucket on the front and a small digging arm on the back.
  • Long-reach excavator: an extra-long boom for dredging rivers and reaching across water.
  • Demolition excavator: swaps the bucket for a hydraulic hammer or steel jaws that break concrete.
  • Mining shovel: the giant of the family, loading haul trucks in open-pit mines.

How an excavator digs

The arm of an excavator works a lot like your own. The boom is the upper arm, attached to the machine. The stick, which some crews call the dipper, is the forearm. The bucket is the hand, and its steel teeth break into hard ground. Hydraulic cylinders push and pull each section. They're filled with oil under pressure, which is how arms that look thin can lift several tons.

Everything above the tracks is called the house. It holds the cab, the engine and a heavy counterweight at the back that keeps the machine from tipping forward when the bucket is full. The whole house can spin in a full circle, so an operator can dig on one side and dump on the other without moving the tracks.

For realistic color, make the tracks and the bucket dark gray, leave the cylinder rods silver or white, and tint the cab glass light blue. Fresh dirt in the bucket looks best with two browns, one over the other.

Frequently asked questions

Are these excavator coloring pages free?

Yes. All excavator coloring pages are free to download and print for personal and classroom use.

What is the difference between an excavator and a digger?

Digger is the everyday word, used most in the UK and Australia, for any machine that digs. Excavator is the proper name for the machine with a boom, a stick and a bucket on a spinning house. A backhoe is a different machine: a tractor with a digging arm on the back.

Do you have easy digger pictures to color?

Yes. Pages marked Easy show one digger from the side with thick lines and no background. Toddlers and preschoolers can fill the big body in one color and the tracks in another.

Why are excavators yellow?

Yellow is easy to see against dirt, concrete and dull skies, which matters on a busy site. Not every maker uses it, so orange, red, green, blue and white diggers are all real. Pick whichever you like.