I've never used any workbooks or read anything about coloring with toddlers, but my soon-to-be 3 year old likes to draw a lot and she has inspired some fun drawing activities that go beyond scribbles.
In the past few months, I've been interested in teaching her how to draw things she can recognize instead of the aforementioned scribbles. The first thing I ever tried was drawing a line with a pen and seeing how well she could draw over it with a marker. She liked it a lot.
Then I started drawing circles for her and asking her to add eyes, nose, etc. It was crazy stuff at first, but then about two months later, she decided to try it all on her own and could do the circle, eyes, nose, mouth, and hair and it actually looks like a face.
Drawing something together I think is a great way to encourage drawing skills. You can do the "hard" part, and your child can add something to it. We've done this with houses where I draw the main shape and she adds the windows, door, or whatever else. Sometimes she'll simply draw a line for a flower stem, stop sign, etc. When I thought she seemed ready, we tried a few letters. She is lucky that the letters in her name are not hard. She doesn't know what the letters sound like or anything, but she's getting exposure and it's amazing how introducing one thing can lead to another when they show you they're ready.
I have never been good at organized learning with my kids. I think it would be cool to have a bunch of planned learning activities ready for each day, but it's not practical for my life and the time that I have. But I have found fulfillment for myself and my kids in teaching things in the spontaneous activities we do throughout the day.
If anyone has insight to share in the world or drawing, please share!
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4 comments:
Linz, that's a great idea! I wasn't sure how to get past the scribbles either, I just figured it would happen eventually. But I really like those ideas for helping her along and encouraging her. I love how you always say you aren't good at these things, when in reality you are the one I get the most ideas from!
I used to encourage coloring all the time and finally gave up thinking she wasn't interested. She's three and half now, and my daughter just one day started drawing "princesses" that actually had eyes and hair and of course ball gowns. It came out of the blue actually and now she loves drawing! I think it comes in all ways, organized and of out of the blue which is wonderful! I saw her drawings on your blog though and I would like to do more sitting down and coloring with a purpose rather than giving her the tools and running off and doing something else!
One thing that I've started with Bauer are the Kumon Workbooks. He does NOT draw....at all. He madly swirls his hand around the page, claims it's a black hole, planet, galaxy, etc. and then runs off to the next activity!
There are tons of different books and they cover a variety of things from drawing, coloring, letters, numbers, and start with stuff for 2 year-olds.
What we've done is one or two drawings and two or three letters a day and he loves it! He has a special pencil and one-on-one time with me.
You can check it out at kumonbooks.com. I bought our books at Barnes & Noble. Hope this helps!
I have seen on Montessori blogs where they have little cards that take a child step by step to drawing like a penguin and stuff like that...it seems simple for kids to do...and since each card shows them a different shape to add to the drawing it's easy for them to follow...a good stepping stone to drawing skills...
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