Albert Einstein once said, “Creativity is intelligence having fun.” I love that way of explaining it because creativity-in its essence- is all about the joy of exploring and learning. When we’re being creative, we are taking the rules (the knowledge we’ve acquired) and innovating based on that knowledge. Creativity is intelligence and learning, in a format that is naturally fun for kids!
Creativity is one of the most important qualities to nourish in kids for a huge list of reasons, but here are just a few:
- Creative activities foster essential parts of child development, such as: critical thinking skills, fine motor skills, and self-expression.
- Creativity helps children find their unique point-of-view, which helps them gain confidence and communication skills.
- Given today’s quickly evolving digital era, the ability to be creative and innovate are predicted to be some of the most sought after skills in future careers (65% of which do not even exist yet!)
I could probably come up with 100 reasons that being creative is important, especially for growing minds! But if you’re here looking for some simple ways to help boost your child’s creativity, there is a simple daily activity you can encourage your kids to do to help make that happen: drawing.
Helping your child get regular drawing practice is an easy and fun way to make sure your child is growing creatively. Here are 5 simple drawing activities to grow your child’s creativity!
1. Schedule Time for Drawing
Like anything else, creativity can grow with practice, and the best way to make sure that practice happens is to make it a habit!
A really easy way to help foster your child’s creativity is simply to schedule some time each day to be creative. Drawing is a portable and minimalist form of art that is easy to do, everyday, so it’s the perfect form of art to work into your “daily creativity routine.” Simply pick a time of day (and an amount of time) that works for your family’s schedule, and make that time a time for drawing!
And sure, you can’t always predict when “creativity will strike,” but the truth is that creative moments will happen more often when creativity becomes a regular practice. Sparketh offers drawing classes for kids that can be filtered by level and length-of-time, which can also become a part of your child’s regularly scheduled drawing time!
2. Free-Drawing
Part of fostering creativity is letting go of control. Sometimes it’s good to simply give your child a blank piece of paper and just let them draw whatever they want! They could use colored pencils and play around with shapes, doodles, designs—whatever wants to come out!
If they are stuck, sometimes an open ended-drawing prompt can be a good idea. For example, you could ask them to design an original character, or draw something they’d like to do, or come up with an imaginary creature! However, try not to guide them too in what they are doing, and definitely avoid critique!
For kids, free-drawing is an opportunity to let their imaginations run wild, and seeing their own creations come to life on the page is very rewarding! In addition, free drawing is a way that kids often discover what types of subjects capture their interest the most, and what they like to draw the most. From there, they can hone the skills that relate to drawing that subject by using our drawing classes for kids.
3. Drawing Games
Drawing games are another fun way to incorporate drawing as a daily habit and boost your child’s creativity. Getting stuck on “what to draw” can be an obstacle for anyone getting started with art. Using games and drawing prompts can help break the ice and help your child feel at ease when drawing.
There are many ways you can make a game out of drawing. Here are a few ideas to get you started!
- Play a drawing version of “charades,” where your child has a limited amount of time to draw a picture and you get to guess what it is (the less time given to draw, the more fun the game will probably be!) For example, you could have a bowl full of bits of paper with simple prompts and a bowl with pieces of paper with different amounts of time written on them. Then challenge your child to pull out a simple drawing idea (say he or she gets something like “a baseball player”) out of one bowl, and an amount of time (such as “30 seconds”) out of another! This is a fun way to practice drawing different things and spending more (or less) time with various drawings. It’s a fun one for multiple kids to play together, too!
- A simpler version of this game on-the-fly would be to do “drawing Simon says,” where your child has to draw whatever “Simon says,” within a certain amount of time.
- You could also play a game (let’s call it “Mix-up,”) where you challenge your child to combine two objects or animals into a new creation through drawing! For example, your child could combine a zebra and a mermaid, or an elephant and a computer. (Get creative!)
- One of my favorite drawing games is something that I like to call the “squiggle game,” where one person starts a drawing, and another person adds to it, until a work of art emerges and both artists decide it is “done!” For this game, you can also pick a certain amount of turns to take.
Drawing games are a great way to inspire creativity and get motivated to do art more regularly!
4. Use Drawing Classes For Kids
Especially if you homeschool, integrating daily drawing classes is a helpful way to give your child regular drawing practice (and grow his or her art skills) everyday!
Sparketh offers drawing classes for kids that can be organized by level of difficulty, so that your child can start with beginner drawing classes and move on to intermediate or advanced classes as they progress. Students can also browse through Sparketh’s art classes for kids and learn to draw subjects that most appeal to them!
Another reason that many kids and parents choose Sparketh‘s online art classes is that our course library is designed to be self-paced. This means that you and your kids get to decide when art classes fit into your schedule (instead of the other way around.) Sparketh’s online art course library is always available to kids and teens: anytime and anywhere. This makes it that much easier to make drawing classes a regular part of your kids’ routine, everyday!
5. Inspire Kids To Draw (Even When They Aren’t Drawing)
Even when your kids aren’t drawing, they can be thinking about drawing! In any creative endeavor, part of how you grow is by shaping how you think and see the world around you. This is something that we parents can help our kids do in the small, everyday moments! If you’re interested in making creativity more of a priority in your home (or homeschool) we have a whole article that focuses just on that, here.
But in terms of simple ways to inspire your kids to draw, here are some ideas:
- Schedule periodic field trips to your local art museum, or a nearby gallery. Take time to look at, and discuss, the works on display.
- Take regular walks and point out the colors and shapes that are found in nature.
- Pay attention to ordinary things in nature like clouds and trees, noting how the real thing is different from the way we often automatically draw it it (For example, I remember the first time I learned to not draw a sky with just blue and white, and it was because my mom pointed out to me that skies are never just blue and white).
- Challenge your kids to keep a collection of pictures or drawings that they like, either physically or on a social media platform like Pinterest. Similarly, you could also encourage your child to keep a notebook of ideas. When he or she sees something interesting, jot it down in the notebook as a drawing idea for later.
- Occasionally prompt your child to notice details that he or she might take for granted while doing everyday activities, such as the way the light changes certain shadows, or the way that a familiar building is designed, ect.
We hope that some of these tips and ideas will help you make drawing a more regular part of your child’s everyday life. Drawing is an accessible art medium that kids are naturally interested in, and encouraging drawing is a great way to grow your child’s creativity! If you are interested in signing your child up for online art classes, you can find out more here. Stay creative, and happy drawing!