Inclining your kid towards art and craft can be a fantastic idea. Even studies also suggest that drawing skills can be beneficial to kids’ growth years. It can help them with focus, creativity, and improved motor abilities. However, not every child possesses the same potential as the other. Some can be excellent at it, while others can be average performers, but it should not bother you. Not every child can be interested in this activity. Still, it is better to expose them to this from an early age. After all, it can make their development process smooth and progressive.
The benefits of learning drawing by Jonah Engler
As already hinted, drawing can contribute to their development. For instance, it requires hand and finger movement for accomplishing a task. When a child picks up a drawing tool, their motor skills kick in, and they become better at it over time. Drawing also makes them creative. They can draw anything they like and explore their imagination. It is critical to understand that you should not mold them when they are at the first stage of drawing development. Don’t try to divert their attention to coloring books or instruct them about drawing an object. Let them freely explore their ideas.
According to Jonah Engler, drawing abilities can also benefit a child in emotional well-being and academics.
Jonah Engler’s Contribution to Kids
Jonah Engler has taken a lead role in numerous initiatives focused at bettering children’s lives. He has made considerable donations to many groups that serve underprivileged kids by educating, treating, and supporting them.
Engler’s support for the Robin Hood Foundation, a non-profit fighting poverty in New York City, is one of his major contributions to children. He has been a significant donor to the foundation and has contributed to the funding of numerous initiatives that offer low-income children’s education and other support services.
Engler has also given to Citymeals on Wheels, a group that provides meals to children with disabilities and elderly people who are housebound in New York City. Engler has contributed to helping youngsters who are unable to leave their homes because of illnesses or disabilities receive nourishing meals.
Engler has supported children through a number of additional activities in addition to his cash contributions. For instance, he has offered his time to mentor kids and has taken part in fundraising activities to assist a number of children’s health and education-related causes.
The different stages of learning to draw for kids by Jonah Engler
The development of drawing skills in a kid can significantly depend on their age. For instance, a two to four-year-old can scribble or make random figures as he or she starts to use their arm holding a pencil or crayon. At this age, they may not have any idea about different objects. When they are between 3 and 7 years of age, you can expect them to draw geometrical designs and lines to make an object. However, from six to eleven years of age, the kids can identify an item and try to produce an exact picture on the piece of paper. For instance, a kid can draw a house. Continuous practice can help them reach their full potential.
Experts believe that you can witness tremendous growth in their drawing expertise after the age of nine and above. Their drawings can match the expectations of an adult. However, it is still a transitional period. Hence, it would be best if you were realistic about your goals. But one thing that can be different in this stage is their ability to demonstrate gender roles through various items, such as clothes and other fine details.
From twelve years onward, the child can master the art as per his or her understanding. The child can be clear about tools, the medium of art, objects, and others. The level of maturity can reflect in their creation.
No matter why you encourage your kid to take up this art, it would be best if you did not criticize their efforts. Your positive feedback and motivation can help them focus on their skill development. Hence, please show confidence in their endeavors.
The Stages of Drawing Development in Children: 0-6 Years
Here’s a quick rundown of the fascinating developmental stages of drawing in children and reasons why it’s so important to encourage young kids to sketch.
All children naturally enjoy drawing. Young children begin experimenting with drawing materials and producing marks on paper, and as they become older, these marks begin to have significance.
A child’s use of drawing eventually develops into a means of communicating their comprehension of the world and all the things that are significant to them.
Learn how and why drawing is an essential exercise for kids. The stages of drawing development at various ages have also been broken down.
How to Teach a Child to Draw
Early on, it’s important to concentrate on the act of creative sketching rather than the finished piece.
It’s not necessary to explicitly teach kids how to sketch. The best approaches to teach children are to provide them with resources, sketching tools, and the freedom to express themselves.
Their drawings will become more intricate and more like the world around them as they get older and more sophisticated.
It’s preferable to restrict exposure to coloring books and instead choose free drawing, which has more creative value. While using coloring books in moderation is pleasurable and has some value, it’s best to limit exposure.
Why Drawing is Important?
Drawing during the toddler and preschool years has several advantages.
- A child’s fine motor abilities improve as they draw.
- Hand-eye coordination is improved.
- Drawing freely encourages the development of creative expression.
- Pre-writing abilities are built on drawing.
- It increases a child’s ability to focus.
- It fosters the cognitive development of idea understanding.
It is not a natural, age-appropriate technique to foster creativity to have children trace pictures or be “taught” to draw by having them copy models.
The Stages of Drawing
Here are the traits of the many stages of a child’s drawing development. These are not inflexible because every child develops at their own particular rate.
They will all move through the same phases, which are determined by their degree of comprehension, but they will do so at different rates as they progress toward the milestones.
The traits are organized by age.
12 months: Random marks and scribbles
Drawing begins with the exploration and development of motor coordination.
Between the ages of 15 and 18 months, infants begin to scribble meaninglessly and randomly.
Shapes
- Scribbles
- Vertical and horizontal lines
- Multiple line drawings
Understanding
Young children learn about cause and effect and their ability to affect events through drawing.
It is more about enjoying their movements and their effects than it is about constructing and reflecting on their world.
They can learn about the features of numerous instruments, materials, and things through their scrawls, such as pencils, pens, paint, crayons, and paper.
Grip
Beginning around 15 months old, toddlers can frequently hold crayons in both hands (called a palmar grasp).
2 years: Controlled scribbles
The term “controlled scribbling” describes this phase. It can be identified by the random circles and dots that bounce.
All children’s drawings at this age are similar scribbles, but the shapes they contain are crucial for the later, more sophisticated development of drawing and writing abilities.
Shapes
- vertical and horizontal lines
- many spirals and loops
- unpolished circles
- forms resembling the letters T and V
Grip
The thumb and first two fingers of a two-year-old learn how to grip a pencil firmly along the shaft and toward the point (called a tripod grasp). Usually, they will use their favored hand.
Understanding
At this age, toddlers begin to comprehend the connection between their actions and the marks they make on the paper. They’ll start purposefully repeating their actions. By the end of the year, these sketches transform into simple diagrams.
3 years: Basic shapes
Kids begin to incorporate basic shapes in their drawings as they progress through this stage, developing their fine motor abilities and hand-eye coordination.
Shapes
- squares and circles
- crosses
- dots
- forms resembling the letters T, V, and H
Drawing of a person
Children usually create their first drawings of themselves at the age of 3 or 4. The conventional representation of these “tadpole” figures consists of just a head and legs that are joined together.
Grip
A three-year-old holds the pencil’s tip in place with their thumb, first two fingers, and index. They control the pencil well and use their favorite hand.
Use of triangular crayons at this age can aid in your child’s development of a strong tripod hold.
Understanding
Even though you might not be able to see what the child has drawn, they can still describe it to you when they are this young.
They don’t begin a drawing with a clear idea of what they will create; instead, they name their picture either as they are sketching it or after it is finished.
They frequently choose to utilize only one color because it is unrealistic to employ color at this point.
4 years: Patterns and ‘Tadpole” people
By the age of 4, patterns begin to show up in children’s drawings. A child will create a pattern and label it after interpreting it as a depiction of something.
Shapes
- Circles, rectangles, and squares
- Attempts to make triangles and diamonds, although they may not yet be able to.
- Crosses
- Letters (pretend writing)
Drawing of a person
Since eye contact is significant to 4-year-olds, their drawings of people develop from a head with legs to include details like eyes.
Instead of drawing what they see, they instead portray what they know, adding features as they become significant to them. Arms, fingers, and a trunk are shown in detail.
Drawing other images
By the age of four and a half, kids start to combine two or more shapes or forms to create simple images, such as a hat by combining a rectangle and a circle. They frequently pick this up from adults.
Children typically construct individuals as their first continuously repeated forms, although they later incorporate simpler objects like a house or the sun.
Grip
They can control a pencil well and in an adult manner at this stage.
Understanding
Drawing acquires greater intention and significance. Typically, kids plan out their drawings before they start.
Their pictures begin to look like the visions they describe as they purposefully attempt to mix forms and lines.
5 years: Pictures and portraits
Five-year-olds start to sketch with a lot of creativity.
Shapes
- Basic forms
- Diamonds and triangles
- Unplanned letters (to imitate writing)
Drawing of a person
With numerous details, including hair, hands and fingers, feet, and a body, a portrait of a person appears.
Drawing other images
They make drawings of things like animals, homes, cars, trees, flowers, and rainbows.
They can add features, such as when they design a house with a door, windows, roof, and chimney.
Grip
Children should have mastered decent hand-eye coordination by the time they turn 5 years old.
Understanding
Now, kids will create on their own initiative and start incorporating their own experiences, hobbies, and surroundings into their drawings. What they know is what they draw. Their depictions of people, animals, and homes are continuously changing.
Prior to starting, they will also give their drawing a name. Even if they color inside the lines, their use of color may still be illogical.
As children are still establishing their sense of spatial orientation, persons and objects may still be floating in the air at this point.
Because they are egocentric, they frequently center themselves on drawings (seeing themselves as the center of the world).
6 years: Drawings represents interests and experience
By the age of 6 or 7, children have developed a distinct drawing style that is typically recognizable to adults.
Shapes
When they are seven years old, kids should be able to draw good circles, squares, rectangles, triangles, and diamonds.
Drawing of a person
At this age, a child typically adopts a specific person representation and tends to sketch all of them using the same basic shape.
For instance, they might design the entire family with the same body outline but with varied proportions and clothing and hair to indicate the genders.
Drawing other images
All kinds of animals and objects are depicted in drawings, typically those that most appeal to the artist. Animals often have human-like features in their drawings.
Understanding
Children demonstrate their greater level of cognition at this stage by drawing people, animals, and objects on a background, like the ground or grass.
By depicting objects like little flowers or trees that tower over a house, for instance, they might demonstrate perception.
This illustration demonstrates a child’s improved comprehension of distance and depth.
Their drawings reflect the world as they view it. They enlarge things that are significant to them and exclude those that are not important.
They might make a house have a tiny entryway that is just big enough for them, or very high windows that are out of their grasp.
By depicting flying things or drawing an animal’s legs farther apart if it is sprinting, artists can likewise convey movement in their drawings. Their use of color takes on a very lifelike quality.
Conclusion
It is well known that drawing can have many advantages for kids, both in terms of the stages of drawing development and the benefits themselves. Children can improve their fine motor abilities, hand-eye coordination, focus, and attention to detail, for instance, by drawing. It can also encourage self-expression, creativity, and confidence.