Promoting coloring and drawing
Parents as well as caregivers can promote drawing and coloring as a way to improve physical, social, emotional and cognitive development-and to have a lot of fun along the way too. Here are some suggestions:
The simple acts of drawing and coloring are literally childs’ play, however, they both play an important role in a child’s physical, emotional and cognitive development. Like no other activity, drawing and coloring allows young children to express emotions, experience autonomy and build their confidence.
1. Provide children with nontoxic drawing materials, blank sheets of paper and coloring pages.
2. Model drawing. Show children that you like to color and draw as well – make designs but do not show your children what they should draw.
3. Encourage all drawing and coloring in efforts by talking about the colors, lines and shapes the child has created.
4. Rather than ask ”What is it?,” say “Tell me all about your lovely drawing”.Asking “What is that?” suggests to the child that s/he has failed to depict what they intended.
5. Talk about concepts like thin, thick, wide, narrow, dark, light, edge, shape, contour, etc.
6. Don’t just display their art in their bedroom – give it pride of place in your home in places where visitors to your home will see them. Point them out to visitors – the praise for the work will boost a child’s self esteeem and confidence.
7.Let children choose the subject of their drawings and the types of coloring sheets they would like to color. For example little girls may enjoy coloring images of Barbie and at sites like Barbie Coloring Pages you’ll find the best free Barbie printables
Little boys on the other hand tend to prefer images of cars, trucks and machinery – however, favorite characters such as those from Disney movies are also hits with little boys.
8. Crayons pose a choking hazard – so always supervise younger children while they draw and color.
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