“Mum… will you show me how to draw those circle things?”
“Do you mean mandalas?”
“Yeah… those nice circle pattern things.”
I try not to draw things for my kids. I want them to feel confident to give things a go. I want them to value their creative efforts even if they don’t look ‘real’ or are not ‘perfect’. But sometimes they need a little shove in the right direction… a little scaffold to help them build what they have in mind.
So after a lot wailing about wonkily drawn circles, I suggested that we use a tool to help us get our circles to look the way we wanted them to, and I fired up the computer. Zoe and Morgan worked together (with some technical help from me) to create their own scaffold for those ‘nice circle pattern things’. And then we made some other shapes too…
Then they set to work on their own mandalas and patterns and their creativity flowed freely, without any ‘I can’ts’.
You can download a zip file with the four drawing shapes – circle, square, octagon and mixed – here via google drive.
I’m trialing the new google drive for my printable today. If you click on the link above it should take you to the g-drive page with the files on it. To print them straight from g-drive, click on the file you want to print and it will open it and give you the option to print. To download the entire zip file go to file and choose ‘download’ (right down the bottom – or CTRL+S for PC users). Please let me know if you have any problems.
I love how you make simple things, so fabulous Kate. x
Thank you so much for this post. I want to let you know that I posted a link to your blog in CBH Digital Scrapbooking Freebies (please, notice the new url for my blog), under the Page 4 post on Aug. 07, 2012. Thanks again.
Thankfully, Miss Possum has been an amazing drawer from 1.5 years (I’m not kidding, she spent hours on that magnadoodle toy). She could draw shapes by age two but I love the idea of using shapes to be be creative, to create your own mandala designs and to use vibrant colours like your children did.
Thank you so much for posting this! I bought a mandala coloring book for my kids on vacation and they loved it … now I am excited to print these out and see what they create on their own. Thanks again for sharing!
These are terrific Kate. A brilliant prompt that still allows kids to put their own stamp on it and make it their own. The downloads worked fine for me btw. Pinning and sharing this!
How fun! We’d love this activity. Will have to print the document and give it a try. Thank you :D
HI! I’m 67 and love to make childrens’ art! I have just copied these out for myself, then, overprinted the shapes. What fun, and Thank you!