What can your 2.8 year old draw?

[Dalrymps]

Just wondering. Ds's drawing has really taken off lately and he's gone from drawing lines and dots to pictures of allsorts, people, cars, sand castles etc

Just wondering if this is pretty normal for his age, I'm not saying he's gifted or anything like that, just wondering what's normal for this age...

Very cool :0) I just love the way they draw things, so imaginative. I keep taking photos of his pics with my phone

Ds (2.6) can draw faces, shapes, dinosaurs, etc
Last week he drew the typical house, blue sky, sun, grass and trees .

When My DS1 was that age could draw recognisable things from people to houses.

DS2 aged 5 was nearly at the end of reception before he drew anything recognisable. In fact his teacher mentioned it in his end of year report. He loved 'making' things but hated drawing pictures (although his handwriting was lovely which I found odd!) and what he did draw had no real meaning!

Looking at the paintings all his reception glass painted at the beginning of the year there there was a massive difference in ability.

My 2.8 year old can draw squiggles! I'm so proud. He can do basic faces - circle then dots for eyes and big curve for mouth.

Drawing cars and stuff sounds very very good for a 2 year old! I think you all sound like you have very clever DCs.

mine just turned 2 has started trying to draw things, well as in he does a scribble and says it is a helicopter, does not actually look like a helicopter... but its done @ the top of the page as though in the sky. also tries to draw cars, and specifically the doors on the cars. he can do a good road though, just a straight line (or a bumpy one sometimes) at the bottom of the page
really looking forward to seeing pictures that actually look like the thing its supposed to be

I have really noticed a big difference in small children's drawing ability since us childcare professionals started to give them blank paper instead of photocopied sheets to colour in.
I banned photocopied sheets from the toddler room where I work and gave the children blank paper instead. The difference is amazing.
Although there is a place for colouring in, I do think that it limits and stilts children's artistic abilities, with it's emphasis on conformimg and not going over the lines.
Some of my colleagues where quite resistant and argued that the children enjoyed colouring in. They might do, but they are not really learning or developing any skills. It's just a time filler.

Purepurple. Have you tried giving them A3 sheets or even squares of lining paper ?
The results can be pretty impressive as they love drawing without boundaries .And you are right about colouring in. Best kept for older children (and adults as therapy )

but they are not really learning or developing any skills.............

I would argue that they do learn, the pencil control to colour within lines, and have a recognisable result at the end of their efforts.

In a well run nursery I would expect to see blank paper and ready printed pictures for colouring.

Uhm, dd 2.6 can only do little squiggles that are supposed to be everything from dinosaurs to Pappa (not that far a stretch, actually).
She dances very nice, though and constantly makes up little songs.

DS is 2.8 and his drawing has improved noticeably recently. I haven't been able to recognise any of his drawings so far, but the other day he drew a pic of me, and it looked human.

I had a huge oblong head, 2 eyes and a mouth, a pair of legs (but no arms) and a pair of ears that an elephant would have been proud of.
'That is you, Mammy' he proudly said, and I could have wept with joy.

oh dear - DS (2.8) mostly does Jackson Pollockesque pictures. Lots of colour, very deliberately placed, but nothing recognisable. Although he can do circles when asked to, he prefers lots of lines, some wavy, some straight.

I'm not worried...

A lot of clever little artists out there it seems! He recently drew myself and dh and I was so honoured! Amazing the things that can make your day! He prefers blank paper to colouring in at the mo. We got him some colouring books but he mainly ignores the pictures and draws what he wants around them

I think watching squiglet on cbeebies has influenced him...

Thumb- that was what ds was doing too about a month ago, pollockesque dots on the blackboard then one day he drew a traffic light he he

Srstanislaus Yes, we give them al lsorts of paper. We have huge sheets of paper that have flying maps on the other side. We put them on the floor and let them just get on with it.
We also use rolls of lining paper and roll it out on the floor. Makes great displays for the walls.
zandy
"I would argue that they do learn, the pencil control to colour within lines, and have a recognisable result at the end of their efforts" This is where we disagree. All pictures are recognisable to the person who has drawn them. Pencil control can be learnt from using a pencil to draw anything.

Goodness neither of mine could do anything like that at a similar age.

I was thinking DD at 3.9 was doing well drawing people with bodies as opposed to just heads with stick arms and legs which is waht DS did til he was 5

Pencil control can be learnt from using a pencil to draw anything. ......

Yes, including drawing colouring on pre-printed pages.

We can happily disagree.

I think we can safely say that children learn from doing anything creative, not just physical skills, art is therapeutic after all

My 3 yr old can still only draw squggles that he says are trins or fire engines but are totally unrecognisable. He doesn't see that interested to be honest.

trains ^

Mine could do 'recogniseable' pictures very well, right number of fingers etc.

However, he's now 3.3 and won't draw at all! Just not interested! I'm hoping it's a phase... I miss having pictures.

And on Father's Day: 'are you going to make a card for Daddy?'

'No... I'm going to paint my hand black'.

He he at the fathers day refusal, sounds familiar!

My DD is 3.1 and can draw a simple face if pushed but that's about it.

Given free reign she tends to colour / paint the whole piece of paper red. That's all she does. EVERY time.

If given a colouring book she will colour the whole picture in red. Even if it's a tree or the sea or a banana. If I try to persuade her to use other colours she gets cross and refuses to do any more.

Consequently all the red felt tips / paint have run out, and we have all the other colours which never get used.

Also she's mainly right handed, but uses her left hand about 25% of the time. She also holds her pen in her fist (and refuses to be corrected).

Limpopo, I like red too. :-))

Not worried here either, she's doing swell. And she tells me that most of her squiggly lines are spidernets, which I think is very clever indeed.

Oh yeah, ds gets what we refer to as 'artistic anger' when his drawing doesn't go quite how he'd like and he throws his chalk/pen/crayon down and has a little tantrum