Book Review – Drawing Workshop for Kids: Process Art Experiences for Building Creativity and Confidence

Help kids build confidence and find their own creative voice through this collection of 25+ invitations for drawing.

In Drawing Workshop for Kids, art educator Samara Caughey, founder of the highly praised family-centered art studio Purple Twig, shares drawing activities that support the development of creative, confident children ages 7 and up.

All kids need to begin engaging in the pleasure of these simple yet inspiring drawing projects are a pencil and paper. Along the way, new materials are introduced, giving kids the opportunity to experiment with new techniques.

Each of the three main chapters—drawing from life, drawing from images, and inventive drawing—focuses on techniques to explore, such as observation, mark making, shadow, line, composition, detail, contour, and perspective.

Drawing Workshop for Kids strives to inspire children to investigate drawing and develop their own approach to art, building creativity and confidence.

Here are some FAQs for teaching your child to draw, including one on whether a child needs natural drawing talent:

Q: How can I teach my child to draw?
A: You can start by encouraging them to draw frequently, providing them with drawing materials such as pencils, markers, and paper, and giving them simple drawing prompts to get them started.

Q: What age should my child start learning to draw?
A: Children can start learning to draw as early as age two or three, but it is never too late to start.

Q: Does a child need to have natural drawing talent to learn to draw?
A: No, natural drawing talent is not required to learn to draw. Drawing is a skill that can be learned and developed with practice and patience.

Q: How can I encourage my child to keep drawing?
A: You can encourage your child to keep drawing by praising their efforts, displaying their artwork, setting up a designated drawing space, and providing them with new drawing challenges and materials.

Q: What are some simple drawing prompts to get my child started?
A: Simple drawing prompts could include drawing their favorite animal, drawing their family, drawing a landscape or still life, or drawing a character from a book or movie they enjoy.

Q: Should I correct my child’s drawing mistakes?
A: It is important to focus on the effort and creativity put into the drawing rather than perfection. Instead of correcting mistakes, encourage your child to keep trying and experimenting with new techniques.

Q: How can I help my child learn new drawing techniques?
A: You can help your child learn new drawing techniques by providing them with drawing books, watching tutorials together, or enrolling them in art classes or workshops.

One of the subjects that’s often covered in preschool is learning about the five senses. Understanding our senses helps us describe the world around us and our experience in it, and it’s fun to explore the senses in different ways.

Rock Your Homeschool has a great free printables pack having to do with the five senses. I love the foldable activity shown above because it emphasizes that the way we really experience our senses is through our brains. They also have a sensory scavenger hunt printable, which doesn’t include taste but has the rest of the senses included.

Of course we don’t really want kids tasting things they find outside (unless you happen to have fruit or vegetables growing nearby) but I like the way Hands on Teaching Ideas handled it by including “something an animal would eat” on their five senses scavenger hunt.

Sea of Knowledge has lots of ideas for things to do with preschoolers to learn about the five senses, as well as this free with email signup template for making a five senses craft (you could also trace the child’s hands instead of using the hands in the template if you like).

Use a potato head toy you probably already have to play a five senses game with the download from A Little Pinch of Perfect. You could do the same thing on paper with a potato (or human body) shape and color on the different sense organs.

Simple Everyday Mom has a cute set of senses puppets you can print and play with, or use for different projects and crafts.

Preschool Packets has a whole set of posts dealing with teaching the five senses (the one linked here is for hearing but the rest are linked within that post), which includes a great idea for making shakers with kids to explore the sense of hearing.

Tim’s Printables has some cute five senses printables where kids can match the image to the sense you’d use to explore it. There’s also a body to label but I think there’s only a male version.

Have you read?