Drawing Club

Did any of your children come home and tell you they were in drawing club today? Do they come home and talk about anything besides recess and centers? :)

I don't think I've explained drawing club before, so this is how it started. I realized that a few children could use some specific instruction in how to draw things (because all their people and animals look the same: little circles with 4 lines coming out). Additionally, there are always Kindergarten children who could benefit from fine motor skill development, so any writing or drawing is beneficial.

Rather than just pulling one or two children to work on some of these drawing skills, I invented "Drawing Club" (once a week, during center time). A few children are mandated to attend, but since they have come voluntarily so far, they are currently unaware of their obligation. It's amazing how exciting something is if you call it a club.

Personally, I'm not very gifted at drawing, but this summer I was talking to an artist friend of mine who has taught art to young children, and she recommended a few good websites. One of them, Art Projects For Kids, has some great step-by-step instructions for drawing various things.

I try to mix it up a little, so the first week we drew snow bears and colored them with markers, last week we drew gingerbread people and colored them with pastels. This week we drew cardinals and then painted them (some children just stayed for the drawing part, and that's fine). I think the most exciting part was drawing invisible snowflakes with white crayon and then watching them appear when we watercolor painted the sky.

Enjoy a few pictures from this week:
This child asked if they could make the sky black. Well, of course! I am usually in favor of trying new ideas.