There has been an explosion in drawing at the Pickle Farm recently.
Zoe and Izzy (almost nine) have always loved to draw and will spend hours creating books, or drawing huge creations. Morgan (five) has finally found some confidence in his drawing skills and now can’t get enough of it. And Noah (two) has just begin to figure out that making a mark on paper is more interesting than drawing all over himself, the table and the floor.
With two weeks of school holidays and no easily accessible running water for clean ups thanks to the never ending renovations, drawing is the craft activity of choice right now.
Drawing doesn’t have to be ‘boring’ or the same all the time, there are lots of ways to spice up a drawing activity, but the benefits of ‘just drawing’ are many and important.
When a child draws/scribbles/makes marks etc they are developing fine motor skills, practicing pre-reading and writing skills, expressing imagination and creativity, communicating their ideas, practicing critical thinking and problem solving, developing confidence and resilience, experimenting with cause and effect, learning concepts such as size, shape, colour and number, developing eye hand co-ordination, and much more.
Here are some of our favourite drawing activities that we’ve done over and over and will be doing again these holidays!
Ten Awesome Drawing Ideas For Kids
Fun with the Whiteboard – quick and easy!
Scanned Drawing Prompts – we do this over and over.
Drawing Portraits – we drew these portrait as gifts but have since done many more.
Printable Drawing Shapes – you can download these drawing prompts free.
Creative Clothing – Fabric markers are cheap and available these days and provide an interesting new drawing experience.
Printable Drawing Frames – download these to make your drawings a little bit fancy!
Drawing Myself – My big girls are keen to have another go at this one!
Drawing on Foil – easy and interesting!
Paper Dolls, Boats and Flowers – this activity requires a little adult interaction but is lots of fun!
Drawing with Toddlers – a simple post about a beginning drawer exploring with crayons.
Have you got a favourite drawing activity?
Feel free to leave a link in the comments and show us how much you love to draw!
Lots of fun there! Thanks for sharing these ideas. My daughter was watching too and has decided she wants to do the paper dolls/boats etc. We love drawing too and I love finding new, fun ways to draw. Here is another simple idea that your kids might enjoy :) “Secret Doodling!” http://www.learnwithplayathome.com/2012/03/secret-doodling.html
I love this post – my boys will love these suggestions – thank you.
Hope you don’t mind but I’m off to share your fab post on FB.
Some great ideas there Kate! At the moment i am truly grateful for washable markers as just found some lovely drawing on the TV and walls…i knew it was too quiet this morning! We are doing some foil drawing this afternoon!
I love these drawing ideas…especially the foil one. I do a lot of fine line drawings with the children at school and I am always very proud of the amount of detail many of them add but it is nice to mix it up. Going op-shopping for some old clothes suitable for jazzing up with some drawing is now on my to do list with my kids at home….thanks!
A great post and much needed for the 2 week stretch ahead. Will be sharing on FB! :)
These are all totally awesome! So can I just clarify… You put objects in your scanner and it came out in color… Totally cool!!! bookmarked!!!xx
We have one of those ‘multifunction’ printers… just the cheapest Canon Pixma.. so we can scan whatever is on the scanning glass and then print it as a colour print… easy!
There are so many great ideas to try here. I can imagine my girls having some fun with the paper dolls and boats. I will have to add this one to our holidays things to do list.
This is a wonderful list Kate! I didn’t tell you that we tried out the drawing on aluminium foil. Miss Possum LOVED it. The twinkles, well, they started of well but then decided crumpling the foil was more fun (that’s 1.5 year old for you). I think I’ll be doing the draw myself next. Love the thought of doing a life-size portrait of Miss Possum!
These are brilliant ideas Kate. My little one will LOVE the life size drawing of himself. Going to try that this week. We also tried painting on foil after you wrote about it. Never thought of trying markers on it as well- duh! What a quick and simple idea that will look so cool – a nice one for when I’m trying to cook dinner I think. Thanks!
Wow these are Great! I love all of the different mediums you used too!
Great list! Thanks for sharing! My 6 year old son, loves to draw, and it is a feast to watch him. I am an artist myself, but I never ‘program’ him on the do’s and the dont’s. He enjoys every moment of this process!
Do have a look at his studio :)
http://littlesketchers.com/members/Cheena.Kaul/studio
Thanks!
C
My kid always love Drawing. Drawing Portrait is a great idea for the kid’s Drawing..
xxxxx