Object Tracing – An easy drawing activity for all ages

A group of kids, all different ages, all looking for something to do.

It’s not always easy to find one activity that suits a variety of ages, and keeps everyone interested and happy, but this object tracing drawing activity really hit the spot for this group of kids.

I had 6 kids ranging in age from six to thirteen, and because this activity is open-ended, each individual child approached the invitation to draw in a slightly different way. Starting with the objects they collected to trace around, how they chose to trace them, and what ideas they had in mind for how the picture would look.

It was great to watch each of these kids happily doing their own thing, experimenting, and sharing their ideas with one another.

Object Tracing

To have a go at this easy object tracing activity you’ll need:

• A collection of objects to trace around
• paper
• pencils or markers

I gave the kids instructions to hunt around the house and find any kinds of objects that might be interesting to trace around. They went through the kitchen drawers and looked in the craft cupboard and even raided their toy collections. What started as a small collection kept growing and growing as someone would think of an idea and run off to get it.

Here are some of the objects we used:

• craft sticks in various sizes
• cups and bowls
• plastic containers
• spatula
• potato masher
• Legos
• cutlery
• bottle tops
• shoes
• puzzle pieces

We made sure to use pencils or water-based markers to trace around the objects so any marks would wash off easily. And we just used plain old printer paper, just make sure you have a big pile because this activity was very popular!

For the younger kids there was lots of fine motor skills required to hold the object while tracing around it.

The older kids quickly started experimenting with different ways to place the objects to make different outlines and combinations.

Some of the pictures were a collection of interesting outlines, some put shapes together to make other images, some to make patterns. Some of the kids coloured their design in, while others left them just as outlines.

And one of the best things about this activity is that it’s easy to set up and easy to clean up!

So if you have a bunch of bored kids, give it a try!

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