Glow

Posts Tagged ‘art’

Are you fed up with paying top-dollar for the latest piece of over-hyped plastic? Answer “What can we do now Mum?” by making and creating activities from items you already have around the house or that cost nothing at all.

1. Shops. Save all your empty grocery cartons for a week or so and you’ll soon have a shop any aspiring grocer would be proud of. Gluing down the flaps makes cereal boxes, jelly packets etc. look unopened. Clothes, shoes, and even toys can all be used as “stock”. Paper bags and real or play money add to the fun.
2. Paper balls. When the kids keep arguing suggest that they throw something at each other! Paper balls are easily scrunched up from torn out magazine pages to make “ammunition”. When it’s time to tidy up, stand the waste paper basket in the middle of the room and see who can throw the most in. A rolled up magazine makes a good “bat” too.
3. Doctors/Nurses. A roll of white toilet tissue paper makes this game much more fun as Dads, Grans, teddies or dolls are mummified before your eyes. Plastic medicine spoons and cardboard box hospital beds for toy dolls are extra props that make the game last longer.
4. Tubes. Cardboard tubes from kitchen roll or foil make instant telescopes for sailors or pirates, or tunnels to roll marbles through. Babies love to watch things disappear then reappear out of the bottom. Don’t leave them alone with the cardboard tube though as they will probably suck it.
5. Cardboard boxes are tops – how many times have you bought your child a toy – only to find that s/he is more interested in its box? Boxes must be about the best free toys you can get hold of. Push in the ends of large ones to make tunnels and caves to crawl through. Draw-on windows and doors with felt tip pens to create a house, add a flag and portholes to fashion a boat or paper plates and a steering wheel for a car.
6. Miniature gardens. The foil trays that (meat and dessert) pies and other prepared foods arrive in make lovely containers for miniature gardens. The little ones can enjoy hunting around the park or garden for twigs to make trees, moss for a lawn, stones to arrange as a rockery or a waterfall. Keep twigs or stones where you want them with a little blue tack or plasticine. Add toy people or animals and maybe a little water if the container is watertight. This can be a very creative and enjoyable exercise if you have children of very different age groups to entertain. A variation is to use play sand (not builder’s sand – it stains everything yellow) to make a beach scene, maybe adding shells, stones and a blue paper sea.
7. Paper puppets. A picture of anything – colorful bird, clown’s face, animal or cartoon character, carefully cut out by an adult and stuck to the top of a strip of card about five inches long and one and a half inches wide becomes a very easily made puppet. These give such pleasure and are so easy to make that you will probably end up with dozens of them. Magazine pictures can be stuck on to folded card to make theatre set background and wings.
8. Potato prints. After cutting a potato in half, draw on a simple shape. A triangle, circle or star perhaps. Cut away the rest of the potato, leaving a shape to dip into paint and print on to paper.
9. Skittles. Skittles can be improvised from large plastic cola or lemonade bottles. A little sand or water in the bottom makes them more stable. A good game for learning to count.
10. Dens. Building a den must be one of the most memorable parts of childhood as we all seem to recall the bliss of blankets draped over the airing rack in the garden or over the backs of chairs indoors. Even today’s sophisticated kids seem to find the thought much more exciting than just erecting the shop bought plastic play house. I think the secret is to give structural advice about making the thing stay upright, but let the children do as much as possible themselves. Really large boxes of the type that washing machines and fridges come in can be had for the asking from the big electrical goods retailers and are useful for rooms within dens. Indoors, one of the simplest dens can be made by throwing a large sheet or duvet over a table. Cushions, torches, biscuits and comics or books will all be needed at the housewarming.
11. String. Children find a million uses for string, from tying up toy “baddies” to making a washing line for doll’s clothes. It can be tied up to the legs of chairs to make a jump, it can be dipped into paint and twirled on to paper, plaited, knitted with, made into a parachute or mobile, used as a measuring aid or for learning how to tie shoelaces and bows. It need never linger in the kitchen drawer again.
12. Sewing cards. Stick a picture on to a postcard or draw a simple duck, car or teddy shape. With a sturdy bodkin needle, push holes around the outline of your design approximately one inch apart. Using brightly colored wool in the bodkin or a long bootlace, thread in and out of the holes.
13. Create a personalized coloring book for your children and/or their friends by printing free coloring pictures from the Internet. Little boys love coloring images of trucks and cars as well as those of favorite TV characters such as Bob the Builder or Pikachu. At sites like Pokemon Coloring Pages  you’ll find  Pokemon coloring book while at Princess Coloring Pages you can print and color  many free princess colouring suitable for little girls.
14. Stilts. You need to do a little drilling for this one. Take two strong tins (coffee or clean paint tins are ideal for this) and drill a hole about one inch from the top on opposite sides of the tin. Insert a length of string and knot securely. Check that the handle is at a comfortable length for the child before knotting the other side. These are always a very popular part-time, but never leave young children alone with them especially near stairs or steps.
15. Cafes. Children’s tea sets are a handy prop for this game, but a picnic set or microwave cookware is just as good. Giving the waiter/waitress a little notebook and pencil to take orders and making a tall white hat from a cylinder of paper for the chef will add realism. Place dolls and teddies around as well as willing Aunts and Grannies for extra customers.
16. Playdough. Mix together two cups of flour, one cup of salt, one cup of water, one tablespoon of oil and a few drops of food coloring for an easy to make dough that will keep for about three weeks if you wrap it in polythene and keep it in the fridge. All you have to do is make sure that you knead the mixture well. Divide the mixture up first if you have more than one color available.
17. Obstacle course. An obstacle course can turn a rainy day into an exciting adventure. Use whatever you have available. A bench to walk the plank, cushion stepping stones across shark infested seas, through a cardboard box tunnel, up a chair mountain or through a duvet cave. The wilder your imagination the more your children will love it.
18. Easy boats. Recycle your empty margarine cartons. Use them as boats for the bath or paddling pool. These are so easy that even the very young can help to make them. Cut out triangular sail shapes from white or colored paper. Make a little hole at the top and bottom of the sail so that you can poke through a straw to create a mast. Let the child fix this to the bottom of a clean margarine tub with a lump of blue tack or plasticine. They sail extremely well and will even take a couple of toy people on an exciting cruise.
19. Capes. Nurses, kings, queens, Batman, Superman – they all need capes or cloaks. Luckily they are easy to make by attaching ribbon ties to an oblong of fabric in the color of your child’s favorite caped character. Keep an eye on them though, because anything that is tied around the neck (of course!) could be dangerous.
20. Leaf art. Collect leaves and draw around them. This is fun for little ones and an educational tree identification game for older children. Color in the details with crayons or paints. The leaves could then be stuck on to paper collage style or dipped into paint and then pressed firmly on to paper for a lovely leaf print.
21. Make a puzzle. Stick a favorite picture on to the front of the card and allow drying with a heavy book on top. Cut into pieces, how many depending on the age of the child, for an almost instant and personal puzzle

Antique books are considered precious because of the age, topic and the pictures that attached on the book. Antique books are identified to be scarce in INSA number which is a standard of American National Association. Regardless that fact, many self-published antique books have not recorded with ANSI, usually since the cost is too luxury while total of the books published at one time is very limited.

Writing books has been around from the time when the Egyptians put their images on papyrus. The Chinese in the sixth century also used movable type made of clay to write but the size of the Chinese character set made book printing difficult, time-consuming and thus seldom been used. The overture of metal movable type did little to maintain printing process but in fact the printing press created by Johannes Gutenberg in 1450 has sped up the process and many true antique books printed on a Gutenberg press are still in collections at the moment.

There are a lot of aims that affect the worth of antique books as well as the substance of the book, but one of the most treasured things is the illustrations that were used in the book. If the art work was produced by a well-known artist, the price of the book will be sky highs along with the state of the product.

Antique Books Reproduction Thrive In Market

Antique books occasionally could not be read due to the type of paper and ink used. Antique books binding techniques usually using glue or stitching, but the age of the paper frequently fall apart the paper on which antique books were printed. as a result, handling antique books and trying to preserve the books should only be accomplished by trained and experienced specialists.

Regaining the content of antique books
is part of the Gutenberg Project that involves not just preserve the books but also change the book to digital configuration. These antique books are scanned into a digital file where they can be read on a computer or replicated in printed format.

In finding antique books, the collector has to comprehend that an old book may be doesn’t have the appeal to make someone else observe as it precious. Wide attractions to add price of the antique books are laid on the storyline, the quality of the excellence and the excellence of the illustrations. Otherwise, the value is dependent on the personal attraction of the books’ owner.

Are you still at sea of knowing more about antique books? Just look around and click the links your best answer herein!

Preschoolers are an interesting age group. Their little minds are sharp and quick in learning, but their attention spans are somewhat short! If you want your preschooler to remember any learned activity and pieces of information, you need to re-emphasize them frequently. This applies also to teaching preschoolers about colors.

Teaching your child the colors of the rainbow is an important part of childhood learning and it is also delightful to watch them associate each word with  a color. The important thing is to make it fun.

Here are some ideas to make learning the colors fun for you and your toddler:

Make the bath a different color every week – so you have red week, blue week and so on. During your child’s nightly bath, add a couple  of drops of food coloring to the bathwater. Talk to them about each color and name other items you see that are the same colors.

Color theme their food too. During one week point out only all the food that is green such as peas and broccoli – next week, highlight red food such as strawberries and apples. During yellow week make a fuss about the yellow of eggs and sweetcorn.

Buy a box of crayons and a coloring book, and spend time drawing and coloring with your child. If you have access to the internet and a printer, there are many online coloring pages that will cost you nothing at all. Little girls love images of fairies or princessesrs while little boys may enjoy pictures of trucks and cars . Both genders will enjoy characters that are unisex such as Spongebob Squarepants for example and at sites like Spongebob Coloring Pages you’ll find the best printable coloring pages of Spongebob Squarepants

In fact, Spongebob is a great character to use to teach the color yellow!Use coloring in together as an opportunity to talk about the red car or indeed the Yellow Spongebob…

Some young children  are naturally talented when it comes to learning colors. They may have a taste or flare towards painting, coloring or drawing and, thus, colors are something that they will get the hang of quickly. Although some kids learn their colors very quickly, it is a fact that almost all kids are extremely interested in colors…. which makes the task of teaching colors – quite an easy one after all…

Encourage creativity in your children by providing them with the time, resurces and the space for making art.Set aside interruption-free time for drawing, in a mess-proof zone – so that their creativity can run wild. Make sure you cover all surfaces so that any splashes of paint or scribbles of crayon are ‘caught’ – because  nothing squishes creativity more so than a parent saying “Don’t make a mess” every 2 minutes.

Choosing the right drawing materials is also very important. Many craft materials can be improvised (think of kitchen roll tubes, yogurt pots etc) but when drawing tools and paper are required, opt for a small selection of good quality age-appropriate products, rather than loads of inferior products. Always make sure that you check safety information and follow instructions. Young children should always be surpervised during ‘art time’ because many necessary materials – such as crayons – pose a choking hazard.

Surroundings:As with writing or working at a computer, good posture and a comfortable position are important for drawing. A child sized table and chair is actually preferable to an easel. If the chair is a little high, provide a phone book as a footrest. A coffee table and an inexpensive plastic chair work well. A small kitchen storage trolley is perfect for containing supplies, or if space does not allow, a portable fishing tackle box is a great option too. Messy toddlers may need a drop-cloth and supervision to avoid ink-stained walls, as even ‘washable’ pens often don’t deliver on that promise!

Art Materials:Avoid cheap markers, too-hard pencils and thin paints – these types of materials are discouraging to the child and therefore  a waste of money. Provide many sheets of plain blank paper to inspire their creativity and occasionally invest in a canvas so that your child can paint something and chances are you’ll want to hang it on your wall!  Provide also coloring books or coloring pages which are bountiful online – coloring pages are not so great for creativity, however they do provide children with the  chance to practice their fine motor skills and sometimes it’s very relaxing and just what they need. They can simply color in without feeling the ‘pressure’ about WHAT to draw.  Little boys typically enjoy coloring pictures of cars and trucks while little girls usually enjoy colouring images of princesses and fairies - sites like like Fairy Coloring Pages you’ll find many fairies print and color

When it comes to drawing and coloring, at each age/stage of your child’s life provide….

Toddlers:

• Child-safe markers and wipe-off boards
• Chalk boards and safe chalk
• Plain paper and coloring pages

Juniors:

• Sketchbook
• Student colored pencils
• Washable Markers
• Oil pastels
• Plain paper and coloring pages

Middle School:

• Sketchbook  or scrapbook
• Graphite Pencils
• Watercolor sketch paper
• Watercolor pencils
• Marker pens, marker paper
• Plain paper and coloring pages

High School

• Sketchbook  or scrapbook
• Quality drawing papers and boards
• Graphite Pencils
• Artists’ quality colored pencils
• Illustration markers, marker paper
• Pastel paper and hard pastels if liked
• Plain paper and canvases to work on

All ages:

• Safe sharpeners, erasers, dusters, stencils and rulers
• A  folder for storing large pieces
• Storage boxes for smaller pieces
• Consider photographing or scanning pieces for a permanent record.

Encourage your children’s creativity by providing them with the time, resurces and the space for making art.Set aside some interruption-free quality time for drawing, in a mess-proof zone – so that their creativity can run wild. Make sure you cover all surfaces so that any splashes of paint or scribbles of crayon are ‘caught’ – because  nothing squishes creativity more so than a parent saying “Don’t make a mess” every 2 minutes.

Choose the right drawing materials too as this is very  important. Many craft materials can be improvised, think of decorated kitchen roll tubes and potatoes as stamps, but when drawing tools and paper are required, opt for a small selection of good quality age-appropriate products, rather than loads of inferior products. Ensure that you check safety information and always follow instructions. During any ‘art-time’ children should always be surpervised because many necessary materials – such as crayons – pose a choking hazard.

Surroundings: As with writing or working at a computer, good posture and a comfortable position are important for drawing. A child-size table and chair is actually preferable to an easel. If the chair is a little high, provide a phone book as a footrest. A coffee table and an inexpensive plastic chair work well. A small kitchen storage trolley is ideal for containing supplies, or if space does not permit, a portable tackle box is a good option too. Untidy toddlers may need a drop-cloth and supervision to avoid ink-stained walls, as even ‘washable’ pens often don’t deliver on that promise!

Art Materials: Avoid cheap markers, too-hard pencils and thin paints – these types of materials are discouraging to the child and therefore  a waste of money. Provide many sheets of blank paper to inspire their crativity and occasionally invest in a canvas so that your child can paint something and chances are you’ll want to hang it on your wall!  Provide also coloring books or coloring pages which are bountiful online – coloring pages are not so great for creativity, however they do provide children with the  chance to practice their fine motor skills and sometimes it’s very relaxing and just what they need to simply color in without the ‘pressure’ of thinking about WHAT to draw. 

Little boys typically enjoy coloring pictures of cars and trucks while little girls usually enjoy coloring images of fairies and princesses  - at sites like Princess Coloring Pages  you’ll find the best printable colouring pages

When it comes to drawing and coloring, at each age/stage of your child’s life provide….

Toddlers

• Child-safe markers and wipe-off boards
• Chalk boards and safe chalk
• Plain paper and coloring pages

Juniors

• Sketchbook
• Student colored pencils
• Washable Markers
• Oil pastels
• Plain paper and coloring pages

Middle School

• Sketchbook  or scrapbook
• Graphite Pencils
• Watercolor sketch paper
• Watercolor pencils
• Marker pens, marker paper
• Plain paper and coloring pages

High School

• Sketchbook  or scrapbook
• Quality drawing papers and boards
• Graphite Pencils
• Artists’ quality colored pencils
• Illustration markers, marker paper
• Pastel paper and hard pastels if liked
• Plain paper and canvases to work on

All ages

• Safe sharpeners, erasers, dusters, stencils and rulers
• A  folder for storing large pieces
• Storage boxes for smaller pieces
• Consider photographing or scanning pieces for a permanent record.

Encourage creativity in your children by providing them with the time, resurces and the space for making art.Set aside some interruption-free quality time for drawing, in a mess-proof zone – so that their creativity can run wild. Make sure you cover all surfaces so that any splashes of paint or scribbles of crayon are ‘caught’ – because  nothing squishes creativity more so than a parent saying “Don’t make a mess” every 2 minutes.

Choose the right drawing materials too as this is very  important. Many craft materials can be improvised, but when drawing tools and paper are required, opt for a small selection of good quality age-appropriate products, rather than loads of inferior products. Be sure to check safety information and follow instructions. During any ‘art-time’ children should always be surpervised because many necessary materials – such as crayons – pose a choking hazard.

Surroundings: As with writing or working at a computer, good posture and a comfortable position are important for drawing. A child-size table and chair is actually preferable to an easel. If the chair is a little high, provide a phone book for a footrest. A coffee table and an inexpensive plastic chair work well. A small kitchen storage trolley is a perfect solution for containing supplies, or if space does not allow, a portable fishing tackle or tool box is a good option too. Messy toddlers may need a drop-cloth and supervision to avoid ink-stained walls, as even ‘washable’ pens often don’t deliver on that promise!

Art Materials: Avoid cheap markers, too-hard pencils and thin paints – these types of materials are discouraging to the child and therefore  a waste of money. Provide many sheets of blank paper to inspire their crativity and occasionally invest in a canvas so that your child can paint something and chances are you’ll want to hang it on your wall!Also provide coloring books or coloring pages – of which you’ll find plenty online. Granted – coloring pages are not so great for creativity, however they do provide children with the chance to practice their fine motor skills and sometimes it’s very relaxing and just what they need to simply color in without the ‘pressure’ of thinking about WHAT to draw. 

Little boys typically enjoy coloring pictures of cars and trucks while little girls usually enjoy coloring images of fairies and princesses  - at sites like Princess Coloring Pages  you’ll find the best princess coloring

When it comes to drawing and coloring, at each age/stage of your child’s life provide….

Toddlers

• Child-safe markers and wipe-off boards
• Chalk boards and safe chalk
• Plain paper and coloring pages

Juniors

• Sketchbook
• Student colored pencils
• Washable Markers
• Oil pastels
• Plain paper and coloring pages

Middle School

• Sketchbook  or scrapbook
• Graphite Pencils
• Watercolor sketch paper
• Watercolor pencils
• Marker pens, marker paper
• Plain paper and coloring pages

High School

• Sketchbook  or scrapbook
• Quality drawing papers and boards
• Graphite Pencils
• Artists’ quality colored pencils
• Illustration markers, marker paper
• Pastel paper and hard pastels if liked
• Plain paper and canvases to work on

All ages

• Safe sharpeners, erasers, dusters, stencils and rulers
• A  folder for storing large pieces
• Storage boxes for smaller pieces
• Consider photographing or scanning pieces for a permanent record.

Parents and 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  efforts by talking about the beautiful colors, the lines and  shapes the child has made.

4.Rather than enquire, “What is it?,” say “Tell me all about your lovely drawing”.Asking “What is that?” suggests to the child that s/he may have failed to depict what they intended.

5. Talk about concepts like  thin, thick, wide, narrow, dark, light, edge, shape, contour, etc.

6. Display their art on the kitchen fridge, in their room and in places where visitors to your home will see them. Point their artwork out to visitors – the praise they will receive will make them feel proud of their work and will encourage them to draw and color again. 

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  princesses and fairies and at sites like Fairy Coloring Pages you’ll find the best fairy colouring pages

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.

Preschoolers are an interesting age group. Their little minds are sharp and quick in learning, but their attention spans are short! If you want your preschooler to remember any learned activity and pieces of information, you need to re-emphasize them frequently. This applies also to teaching preschoolers about colors.

Teaching your child the colors of the rainbow is an important part of childhood learning and it is also delightful to watch them associate each word with  a color. The important thing is to make it fun.

Here are some ideas to make learning the colors fun for you and your toddler:

Make the bath a different color every week – so you have red week, blue week and so on. During your child’s nightly bathtime, add a couple of drops of food coloring to his or her bathwater. Talk to them about each color and name other items you see that are the same colors.

Color theme their food too. During one week point out only all the food that is green such as peas and broccoli – next week, highlight red food such as strawberries and apples. During yellow week make a fuss about the yellow of eggs and sweetcorn.

Buy a box of good quality crayons and a coloring book, and spend time drawing and coloring with your child. If you have access to the internet and a printer, there are many online coloring pages that will cost you nothing at all. Little girls love images of fairies or princessesrs while little boys may enjoy pictures of trucks and cars . Both genders will enjoy characters that are unisex such as Spongebob Squarepants for example and at sites like Spongebob Coloring Pages you’ll find the best free Spongebob colouring

In fact, Spongebob is a great character to use to teach the color yellow!Use this coloring opportunity to talk about the yellow Spongebob or the pretty pink princess dress…

Some young children  are naturally talented when it comes to learning colors. They may have a flare towards painting, coloring or drawing and, thus, colors are something that they will get the hang of quickly. Although some kids learn their colors very quickly, it is a fact that almost all kids are extremely interested in colors…. which makes the task of teaching colors – quite an easy one after all…

Encourage creativity in your children by providing them with the time, resources, encouragement and the space for making art. Try to set aside interruption-free time for drawing, in a mess-proof zone – so that their creativity can run wild. Make sure you cover all surfaces so that any splashes of paint or scribbles of crayon are ‘caught’ – because nothing squishes creativity more so than a parent saying “Don’t make a mess” at regular intervals.

Choosing the right drawing materials is also very important. Many craft materials can be improvised, but when drawing tools and paper are required, opt for a small selection of good quality age-appropriate products, rather than loads of inferior products. Be sure to check safety information and follow instructions. Young children should always be surpervised during ‘art time’ because many necessary materials – such as crayons – pose a choking hazard.

Surroundings:As with writing or working at a computer, good posture and a comfortable position are important for drawing. A child-size table and chair is actually preferable to an easel. If the chair is a little high, provide a phone book as a footrest. A coffee table and an inexpensive plastic chair work well. A small kitchen storage trolley is ideal for containing supplies, or if space does not permit, a portable tackle box is a good option too. Messy toddlers may need a drop-cloth and supervision to avoid stained walls, as even ‘washable’ pens very often don’t deliver on that promise!

Art Materials:Avoid cheap markers, too-hard pencils and thin paints – these types of materials are discouraging to the child and therefore  a waste of money. Provide many sheets of plain blank paper to inspire their creativity and occasionally invest in a canvas so that your child can paint something and chances are you’ll want to hang it on your wall!  Provide also coloring books or coloring pages which are bountiful online – coloring pages are not so great for creativity, however they do provide children with the  chance to practice their fine motor skills and sometimes it’s very relaxing and just what they need. They can simply color in without the ‘pressure’ of thinking about WHAT to draw.  Little boys typically enjoy coloring pictures of cars and trucks while little girls usually enjoy colouring images of princesses and fairies - sites like like Fairy Coloring Pages you’ll find many fairy print and color

When it comes to drawing and coloring, at each age/stage of your child’s life provide….

Toddlers:

• Child-safe markers and wipe-off boards
• Chalk boards and safe chalk
• Plain paper and coloring pages

Juniors:

• Sketchbook
• Student colored pencils
• Washable Markers
• Oil pastels
• Plain paper and coloring pages

Middle School:

• Sketchbook  or scrapbook
• Graphite Pencils
• Watercolor sketch paper
• Watercolor pencils
• Marker pens, marker paper
• Plain paper and coloring pages

High School

• Sketchbook  or scrapbook
• Quality drawing papers and boards
• Graphite Pencils
• Artists’ quality colored pencils
• Illustration markers, marker paper
• Pastel paper and hard pastels if liked
• Plain paper and canvases to work on

All ages:

• Safe sharpeners, erasers, dusters, stencils and rulers
• A  folder for storing large pieces
• Storage boxes for smaller pieces
• Consider photographing or scanning pieces for a permanent record.

Parents and 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 may have 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 their artwork out to visitors – the praise they will receive will make them feel proud of their work and will encourage them to draw and color again. 

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  princesses and fairies and at sites like Fairy Coloring Pages you’ll find the best fairy coloring pictures

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.