Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Primary education

Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

Flip

Original poster

Reception teachers - drawing

24 replies

Mittensonkittens · 15/10/2013 14:35

Ds is 4.4 and has just started school.
He has never had any interest in drawing or writing but just the last week or so has started having a go.

He can write his name and is now writing some recognisable (but huge) letters. Drawing is pretty rubbish, he has just drawn a knight. It has legs coming from its head but it does have facial features, feet and hands. Oh and a sword and shield. No body though and it looks to my eye like something you'd expect from a 2 year old. I'm sure I've read that putting legs straight out of the head is not good!

Is this normal? The girls generally seem much better at this sort of thing. Will he catch up or should I accept he's probably not very academic?

OP posts:

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

Periwinkle007 · 15/10/2013 14:39

someone posted a link months ago about how drawing develops. I bookmarked it and will try and find it for you.

his ability in reception is in now way an indication necessarily of his academic ability. honestly.

Periwinkle007 · 15/10/2013 14:40

www.learningdesign.com/Portfolio/DrawDev/kiddrawing.html

here you are - really interesting

BumbleChum · 15/10/2013 14:40

Mittens! Is this a joke? You want to write your 4yo DS off as non-academic because his drawings aren't very good?

I think it's generally known that girls develop fine motor control earlier than boys.

Relax. I have a DS in Y1 and another one in R. My 4yo has similar levels of drawing ability. I consider him to be rather bright as it happens. My 2yo (a girl) cannot draw at all, she just scribbles/stabs.

I've found that the boys got interested in drawing during Reception after not being at all interested before, and it does wonders for their pen control, which helps their writing.

I love these misshapen drawings. I have one of DS1's when he was 4, which is labelled (by the teacher) 'Mummy' and appears to show a crazed stick insect wielding a javelin. I have framed it and put it on the wall in the hallway, because it makes me laugh. I think he captured the BumbleChum essence rather well.

Periwinkle007 · 15/10/2013 14:44

If he has never really tried drawing before then he will start with things like no body but as his confidence increases he will start to try and copy other drawings he sees and notice more detail and add it.

buy him a big stash of paper, some pencils and draw with him. let him draw anything he wants to but praise it a lot so he will get confident about his ability. When you are reading books you can point out things about the pictures. So don't say to him, that is good but it needs a body (and i am not implying you would) but when you next look at drawings in books then say something like 'I like the way they have drawn this person, look he has a long thin body and long legs, they want him to look tall. Your son will take away a bit of that information - if he wants someone to look tall then make body and legs longer. he might then try that out next time he draws and so on.

One my my DDs does kneecaps on her pictures, not sure why but at some point she probably drew something where the knee would be and one of us must have commented she had drawn great knees so now she does them.

Original poster

Mittensonkittens · 15/10/2013 14:56

We have been drawing together and I've been narrating my drawing. So now Im drawing x and now I'm adding y...

It's good that at least he's trying, he is something of a perfectionist and I think it's made him reluctant to try previously.
I looked at the drawing continum - his picture is better than the 3 years but no where near as good as 4 years.

OP posts:

steppemum · 15/10/2013 14:58

There is an interesting side effect to the drawing thing.

If they still draw a person as one circle with arms and legs, instead of 2 circles with arms and legs coming from bottom circle, then they struggle to distinguish between an 'a' and a 'd' and between and 'n' and a 'h' and so on.
It is a reflection of where they are conceptually. You can improve it by giving him loads of pens and paper stuff and encourage him to free draw as much as possible.

StitchingMoss · 15/10/2013 14:59

Being slightly facetious, I'm 41 and abysmal at drawing - I'm really quite bright though .

Don't sweat it!

Original poster

Mittensonkittens · 15/10/2013 15:01

Really steppe ? Ds has no problem with letters and has known them for well over a year. All of them. He can write a, d, n and h (badly) but definitely can tell them apart.

OP posts:

Original poster

Mittensonkittens · 15/10/2013 15:02

Yes dh is not great at drawing and his handwriting is awful. All of us are left handed too. I have to say my handwriting isn't great but I've always been fairly good at drawing.

OP posts:

steppemum · 15/10/2013 15:03

that's great mittens
but it is related. I can't remember why (trained too long ago)

I know that if you have child struggling with letters, and they still can only draw single circle figures or less, then the first thing that helps is getting them to do loads and loads of drawing /painting

Venushasrisen · 15/10/2013 15:04

Jeesh, I don't think any of my DCs ever reached the Age 8 level - it's so good! .... or 10 come to that.

Original poster

Mittensonkittens · 15/10/2013 15:07

They do look quite ambitious venus !

I'm glad ds doesn't have the letter issue at least. Some of it it pencil control which I guess will come but leaving out the body seems fairly fundamental. How can they not notice it needs a body?!

OP posts:

Cat98 · 15/10/2013 15:23

My ds is working above age related expectations for literacy and numeracy, but his drawing is pretty awful! I mean, obviously no one has said this to us, but when I see his pictures next to pretty much all of his friends', they are way worse. So I am not convinced its related to how bright they are. I can accept its relating to writing ability though - ds can read and spell well, but still reverses some letters when writing (yr 1).

allyfe · 15/10/2013 15:26

I have just found a drawing continuum, I'm not sure if it is the one you are talking about:

www.learningdesign.com/Portfolio/DrawDev/kiddrawing.html

But these are NOT supposed to be average drawings a child of that age could do. I don't know many adults who would draw like the 8 year old one (not least because it is drawn on a computer so ALL the lines are totally accurate), let alone the 12 year old one. They are trying to illustrate the things that children of that age will attempt to represent in a 2D fashion, and how their understanding of the rules of representation develops. So, please don't use that illustration for 4 year olds as a yard stick for your son. My daughter can't draw like that. She isn't the best drawer. She took a long time to decide whether she was right or left handed (she is left handed), and so has been slower to develop those fine motor skills. But, she LOVES to draw, and although she is bothered by the fact that others drawings are sometimes better than hers, we have also told her that different people develop things at different stages, and there are other things she is very good at (on those moments she was upset by not being so good at it). And obviously my child is a genius

prettydaisies · 15/10/2013 18:51

Hmm...
My youngest never drew. She was also very much a perfectionist and because her drawings didn't look like the real thing, she wouldn't draw. However, her handwriting has always been fine. She still isn't keen on drawing even now.

TallyGrenshall · 15/10/2013 19:00

I don't think my drawings look as good as that chart says an 8 y/o should!

DS (4) is abysmal at drawing, generally just scribbles. He has never drawn a house or a person for example, and doesn't really like drawing or painting.

However, he can read well above average, and can write without confusing/reversing the letters. His handwriting is messy but readable

Ferguson · 15/10/2013 19:00

Thanks Peri - I'll keep a note of that Drawing Dev, if you don't mind; very useful!

IsabelleRinging · 15/10/2013 19:01

In my experience quite a lot of children draw heads with legs and no bodies. It is all to do with their concept and in general it is those children who are either the youngest or those that are slightly less mature in their concepts of the world. Nothing to do with drawing ability or artistic talent or intelligence. Also, girls seem to appear to draw bodies before boys.

Those drawings in the link look nothing like drawings the children I work with draw. Not realistic at all in my opinion.

Puffinlover · 15/10/2013 19:07

Please don't be worried, artistic ability or not is a talent like being able to sing etc. I would say DS1 (9) and DS2 (6) are equally intelligent and DS2 seems to be at same levels his brother was as same age BUT DS2 is really great at art, is always drawing and making things and what he produces looks like it was done by someone much older. People often comment on it. DS1 does not have an artistic bone is his body and anything creative often turns out 'not quite how he planned'

SatinSandals · 15/10/2013 19:18

My eldest was just like prettydaisies DC. He wouldn't draw at all at 4 yrs, so I wouldn't worry. He was a perfectionist and refused to even try because he couldn't be accurate. He isn't good at drawing as an adult, but he doesn't need to draw.

blueberryupsidedown · 16/10/2013 12:39

One of my DSs has never enjoyed drawing - but now at 8 he will draw, but it has to be things that he likes drawing. He enjoys drawing aliens, monsters, dragons, robots, even weapons (shock horror) as in teenage mutant ninja turtle weapons, but no people as such.

LeMousquetaireAnonyme · 16/10/2013 12:43

I was deemed stupid at 4 yo when I started school because I drew a head without body just arms and legs....
I do have a PhD though so probably still stupid but definitely academic!

DeWe · 16/10/2013 13:26

My dc's infants do one of those t-towels where they all draw a picture of themselves on.
I was quite relieved to see ds's looked human (the painting of himself he did at the start of reception had 6 eyes and 2 mouths...) but actually there's usually one or two where they are just scribbles, or totally exploded.
What I like to do is get out the previous year's tea towels and see how much these ones have improved. Generally you wouldn't be able to pick out of the year 1 pictures which ones were not human the previous years. And it has no relation on how bright they are.

Jinty64 · 16/10/2013 14:10

Ds2 was really good at drawing, even at pre school. I have a book the playgroup made called "my daddy" and it has 24 drawings by different children of their Daddies and ds2's is by far the best . He is the least academic of my children.

I think your ds will probably be ok.

Flip