How to Teach Kindergarten Drawing

In kindergarten, children are just beginning to express themselves through art while their little hands struggle with unwieldy crayons and pencils. Encouragement is as important as skill development at this stage, and with a few fun drawing games and exercises, you can instill a love of art in a small child.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Drawing tablet
• Crayons
• Pencil
• Large stencils of basic shapes
• Rolls of newspaper ends

1. Remove a single sheet of drawing paper from each child’s tablet and provide crayons or a pencil for the drawing class. Resist allowing the children to use the entire tablet. For many young children, lots of paper is overwhelming and they may scribble on numerous pages before you can intercede. One piece of paper per class is fine.
2. Instill a sense of wonder but not boisterousness in the children. Art reaches deep into even the littlest soul and brings forth creativity and expression.
3. Incorporate objects in the children’s drawing lessons by allowing them to trace the inside of simple stencil shapes on paper. Squares, circles and triangles are good for budding artists but soon you will need to provide more challenging stencils, such as animal or flower designs.
4. Praise each drawing. It doesn’t matter that Jimmy drew a tree that looks like it might actually be a tree while Brian colored so hard he ripped his paper and chewed some of it up. Find something--anything--to compliment each child on. Art is about creativity not strict rules.
5. Help the students hold their crayons and pencils correctly. Be prepared to show them many times as you find them switching back to the old method of grabbing it with their fist and scribbling away.
6. Teach colors during drawing lesson. Pass out only green crayons and ask the children to draw something that is usually green. Then, pass out another color and repeat the process.
7. Encourage children to take their time and draw by planning a themed drawing class. Making a picture for a mom on Mother’s Day adds excitement to the lesson and drawing the fire truck from the class field trip helps children associate drawn objects with reality.
8. Use long sheets from the ends of newspaper rolls and tape together a piece large enough to cover a classroom table. Let the children come up, a couple at a time, and draw 1 object in the picture. Assign objects ahead of time, such as a tree, a cat, a house, the sun or some flowers. When the mural is complete, display it proudly on the classroom wall.

Tips & Warnings

• Exercise patience. Very few kindergarten students are budding Monets, but with a little help and encouragement they may become a real artist 1 day.