drawing stick men

[lewislewis]

when do children start to draw stick men? does it vary a lot?

dd is 4 and and draws people with round circles for bodies and adds sausage like arms and legs, and then adds her embellishments like fingers, toes etc etc
does that help?
how old is your child?

ds was much later than dd.

DS2 did this between 3 and 4 I think although they may have been heads on legs at 3...

DD is 3y7m. She now draws people with round heads, oval/curved rectangluar bodies, stick arms and legs, circles for hands and heat, and with eyes, nose and mouth. They have spiky hair or straight ling hair on their head, and oddly more often than not buttons down their body.

my ds is only 2.3, i was just wondering. i guess it is between 3 and 4.

Answer=It varies a lot. DS1 was very nearly 5 before he ever drew ANYTHING (he's pretty good now, for his age).

varies a lot... i would say Ds was 3 and a half (and drew cars first anyway ....whereas Dd had just had her 2nd birthday when she drew her first stick person. Her people stayed pretty much the same for a bit...but now all of a sudden(she'll be 3 in Jan) they have proper thick bodies and necks and eyes with pupils and hands and feet and knees.

amazing; didn't realise it varied that much.

DS is 3.8, he draws stick people with good detail, he also includes boobies on his people!!!

DD2 was asked to do this as part of her 3.5 year check. The HV told me that she was the only one that day able to do it, so I reckon between 3.5 and 4.5.

Oddly she drew her stick man head first then legs and arms (she left a space for the body) then the body last. Not sure what this means but it seemed a bit odd to me. Anyone else had this?

Ds can't do this really at all. He is 4.3. He has other skills!

dd2 is 3,l and doesnt draw people unless she is copying someone else, but she does give them belly buttons

ds is 4 next week and wouldn't have a clue how to do this - he can just about write the first letter of his name, and that's about it. He's just not interested in drawing or writing - would rather be running around being a space rocket/racing car/fast train...

It does vary a lot. What's interesting is that many (although I'm sure there are exceptions) children's stick drawings seem develop in the same way whatever age it is. So for example they frequently start with a single circle (blob/shape/whatever) that is both head and body - so for example a big circle with eyes and a mouth and arms and legs sticking out of it. Eventually the head and body start to become two seperate shapes with eyes, nose, mouth, ears on the head and arms and legs coming out of the body. My dd's drawings always have tummy buttons!

ha - misdee, didn't see that your dd draws belly buttons too! SNAP

It seems to vary a lot. Ds1 was probably about 4.5yrs old before he started to draw stick people. He couldn't even hold a pencil until he was 4. Ds2 was drawing faces long before his 2nd birthday and started to draw bodies, arms and legs a couple of months ago when he was about 2.6yrs old.

It's an amazing area - child development with respect to drawing. There are loads of studies done on this topic.

Neither of mine have much interest in drawing - dd probably did her first stick figure at 4 (round circle with 2 arms and 2 legs and a belly button!), ds who is 4 now has no real interest in drawing at all and is still in the scribble phase.

Here's a brief description of how they describe the phases but if you search on google (if you're interested!), you'll probably find loads of articles describing in detail the stages they go through.