Life Sized Chalk Drawing – a Toddler Trick for outdoors

Those who are regular readers of this blog will know that we love chalk drawing – particularly on the pavement.  So this week’s blog is a really good opportunity to get your chalk out and draw a life sized image of your toddler.  But you don’t have to stop there.  Your toddler can have just as much fun drawing you or you can work together and create a chalk drawing of another family member.  It is a great opportunity to talk about colours and different parts of the body; plus it generated an awful lot of giggling when we tried!

What you need:

• - A packet of chalk
• - A piece of pavement big enough to lie on
• - A dry day

What you do:

1. Get your toddler to lie still on the ground; this can be the hardest part and the ‘trick’ might be to do a little demonstration with tracing around your legs first so they can see what you are trying to do.  Or, you can trace around a doll or soft toy to start with – they are very good at lying still.

2.  Trace around your toddler with a piece of chalk.  Be as quick as you can and talk about drawing around the hand, arm, foot, leg, tummy, head etc as you go.

3.  Once you have completed your tracing get your toddler to stand up and they should be able to see a pretty good image of themselves!

4. Now the real fun starts – older toddlers in particular will enjoy helping you fill in the blanks.  Ask lots of questions…where are your eyes, what colour is your hair, your shorts, your shoes??  I am sure you get the idea.  You don’t have to absolutely colour everything in but you end up with a really fun toddler sized drawing.

5. Other members of the family might want to be traced too and your toddler can have just as much fun helping you to do the tracing as being the subject of the artwork.

 Happy drawing!