A free coloring page of rabbits at a Japanese moon-viewing party. Tsukimi falls in September or early October, when households set out pampas grass and a stack of round rice dumplings and sit out to admire the harvest moon. The shapes here are large and the lines are open, which makes it an easy sheet for care-home activities as well as for colouring at home. Download and print the PDF — no registration required.
🖊 Moon viewing rabbits — black and white line art (free to print)
For Ages 3–4, For Ages 5–6, Moon Viewing (Tsukimi)
File format
PDF and PNG (black and white line art)
🗣 Conversation Starters — for care activities and family time
Have you ever kept a rabbit? What was it like?
Can you see a rabbit in the dark markings on the full moon?
In Japan the moon rabbit is pounding rice cakes; in China it is grinding medicine. Which version did you grow up with?
What stories or songs about rabbits do you remember from childhood?
Why do rabbits have such long ears?
Long ears let a rabbit pick up a predator from a long way off, and each ear swivels on its own, so the animal can check a sound behind it without turning round. The ears also carry a lot of blood close to the surface and work as radiators: when a rabbit is hot, more blood is sent through them and heat is lost to the air. Desert species such as the jackrabbit have the largest ears of all, which is no coincidence.
Why is there a rabbit on the moon?
The dark patches on the full moon are read as a rabbit across much of East and South Asia. In Japan it is pounding steamed rice into mochi, which is why rabbits turn up on almost every Tsukimi decoration; in Chinese tradition the same rabbit is grinding the elixir of immortality. The rabbit is also the fourth animal of the East Asian zodiac, so a rabbit year comes round every twelve years.
What do rabbits eat?
Rabbits are herbivores. A pet rabbit lives mainly on grass hay such as timothy, with some vegetables and only a small amount of pellets; the gut is easily upset, so hay matters far more than treats. Rabbits also produce two kinds of droppings. The hard round ones are waste, but soft night droppings called caecotrophs are eaten again straight from the body, because that is how the animal takes up the vitamins and protein its gut bacteria have made. Only the soft ones are re-eaten.
