Drawing is fun!

I love to draw, don't you? Drawing is a great way to help your child take a book beyond reading. They can draw their favorite part of the story, draw what they think happened after the story ended, draw their favorite character in the story, and the list of ideas goes on.

Here are a few sites to help your child start drawing. Have fun with them yourwelf. You never know, you and your child might just be budding artists!

Let’s Draw The pictures on this page are free drawing lessons. You can purchase their books too.

Hello Kids Lots of fun drawing pages with step by step instructions

Draw with Uncle Fred Simple easy drawings any child can do. A great starter webiste for a young child wanting to learn how to draw.

Have fun and I'll see you back here Friday with some fun math sites.

posted by Joy Delgado
We go Beyond Reading
Laughing Zebra – Books for Children
Check out what’s going on at the zoo!
Zooprise Party / Fiesta Zoorpresa blog

Learn to draw sites

Do your children/students love to draw? Most children do.

Today let’s take a tour of several websites geared towards teaching children how to draw. Who knows, you might be like me and use these sites yourself.

Billy Bear 4 Kids
This was the first site I found years ago when I was looking for ways to learn how to draw. It’s grown a lot since then, but it’s still really cool. They have lots of free downloadable drawing pages, clip art, paper dolls, and on and on. I could spend all day in this site alone.

Another of my favorites is Young Artist Workshop.
Kevin Collier is an amazing artist/illustrator in a cartoony sort of way. He shows you through short videos how to draw all kinds of things from snowmen, to ducks, kids you name it, you can probably find it here. He adds new videos regularly so it’s one to go back to with pencil and paper in hand.

Other sites worth checking out:
Draw your World

ArtistsHelpingChildren

There are so many out there, I think I'll dedicate another blop post to them in the future.

posted by Joy Delgado
We go Beyond Reading
Laughing Zebra – Books for Children
Check out what’s going on at the zoo!
Zooprise Party / Fiesta Zoorpresa blog

Tip #21 Try your hand at drawing the characters

From comments I’ve received, I’d like to share some of my readers ideas.

The first guest idea is from Christina Rodriguez. She says,

“When I visit schools, I'll often show kids how I painted a certain part of the book and let them try it on their own. It builds up their hand-eye coordination and interest in the arts.”

Thanks Christina.

You can check out her blog at Christina Rodriguez, Children's Book Illustrator

So, have your child or student look at the pictures in the story and try their hand at drawing one of the characters or the whole page. You try it too and have some fun!

Tip #18 Draw the story

A good way to help your child or student remember parts of the story is to have them draw part of it. Ask them:

What was your favorite part? Or, What part scared you, made you sad, happy?

Using their answer as a springboard, have them draw their memory of that part of the story. You can sit with them and draw a different part of the story.

Now if you can’t draw worth beans, you can at least draw stick figures. You might be amazed at what you both draw.

Don’t forget to fill in the details (trees, rocks, houses, cars, boats, etc) that are in the background.

Have fun. Find that little kid inside you, (you know he/she is still in there somewhere) and Enjoy!