Mar 01, 2018

Encouraging kids to draw in class

Most kids in class love to draw and paint, but what can you do with young children who seem reluctant to work on drawing-related skills? Sometimes their reluctance is down to a lack of confidence, so a little gentle encouragement can work wonders, but you may need to work harder with kids that just don't seem to have any interest in picking up pencils or crayons to begin any art work. Printable colouring sheets could be one key to getting reluctant children involved in class art sessions and the following discussion highlights other ideas. (Pickelbums,2015)

Art class ideas for reluctant kids

Think of alternatives to traditional pens and pencils for novel art class ideas. You could offer different materials for drawing with or drawing on. Suggestions include:

- chalks
- oil pastels
- watercolour pencils
- marker pens
- white markers on black paper
- drawing with felt tipped pens on balloons
- draw on silver foil
- using a long roll of paper and getting the whole class involved in a drawing project

There are many ways you can make drawing activities interesting and hopefully motivate children that are reluctant to participate. Giving every child a clipboard, paper and pencils and taking the class outside to draw from nature can be an interesting activity that motivates children to draw.

If you ensure that all the tools for drawing are easily available in a highlighted drawing basket throughout all lessons, children may be more encouraged to take opportunities to add drawings to any written work they are doing.

You can incorporate drawing activities or sign making into other lessons, such as dramatic play or building play. Letting the kids make posters or signs for shopping drama activities or making signs for buildings in Lego construction activities, is another great idea.

Make drawing worthwhile

Give practical reasons for drawing, for instance creating a sign for bedroom doors or designing a postcard or greetings cards for celebrations. You might want to consider creating a book with your class and let everyone contribute to writing and illustrating the content.

Kids enjoy messy play, so painting with finger paints or in sand trays might provide motivation for children who need encouragement to join in artistic play.

Rhino Stationery stocks a wide range of art materials for schools and preschools. Take time to browse our entire selection of school stationery and supplies online.