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dakotamidnight
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| Posted: July 01 2010 at 2:02pm | IP Logged
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DD just doesn't get it - it might be in part her age {almost 4, gifted academically}, and maybe in part that she tends to lag with dexterity, but she doesn't get coloring. Or writing for that matter - she doesn't even scribble for writing.
She loves it, and she finally after much work has consented to putting more than one color per page. For the longest time she would only put one little line or scribble in one color on a paper, and pronounce it done. Now we're up to she will use a few colors, but anything else like staying in the lines, etc she totally ignores. It's all just scribbles on top of the coloring page. I really though she would improve more than that, and I'm trying to get her to use the muscles via coloring in hopes of improving handwriting when we start that in K.
She is very visual and likes to imitate behavior - perhaps a video showing kids coloring might help? Are there any good ones out there? She's an only child too, and we have no family locally.
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: July 01 2010 at 2:06pm | IP Logged
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Have you sat down with your own paper and done scribbles? Doing "nice artwork" can be intimidating.. but doing your own sort of scribbling with different colors etc. Don't tell her what to do so much as let her see you doing it.
Get some sidewalk chalk and make BIG designs out side..
Get big paper and do big pictures with finger paint or watercolors.
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dakotamidnight
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| Posted: July 01 2010 at 2:12pm | IP Logged
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JodieLyn wrote:
Have you sat down with your own paper and done scribbles? Doing "nice artwork" can be intimidating.. but doing your own sort of scribbling with different colors etc. Don't tell her what to do so much as let her see you doing it.
Get some sidewalk chalk and make BIG designs out side..
Get big paper and do big pictures with finger paint or watercolors.
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We've done the scribbling with her. That helped slightly. We can work about 10 minutes coloring together before she gets bored and goes back to a book or video.
She doesn't get sidewalk chalk either - we've tried several times but she just doesn't understand coloring with it, even after showing her what other kids had done with it on their driveways.
She won't touch paint with a 10ft pole, especially finger paints. Says they feel "Icky". She will do paint with water sheets on occasion, but mostly it's just wetting the page at random.
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: July 01 2010 at 2:16pm | IP Logged
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going big may help if her ability to control the crayons isn't up to what she wants to be able to do.. it allows the larger muscles to help more with the drawing.
You may also want to find other things for developing fine muscle coordination. You don't have to hold a writing or drawing utensil to strengthen those muscles.
The smaller size legos are great.. anything that helps with a pincher hold.. moving small objects from one container to another, using a fork/spoon.. painting with a dropper or spoon for putting colors on paper..
Playing with the small dolls.. like polly pockets may be another.. have YOU ever tried to get those bitty little clothes on and off the dolls? 
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Jodie, wife to Dave
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JennGM
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| Posted: July 01 2010 at 2:22pm | IP Logged
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You just described my son. He doesn't like messy or strange textures, and for a while coloring was a little scribble and he was done. He has improved vastly as his motor skills have caught up with him.
Some of it was that he does imitate, and he takes in so much, and didn't like that he couldn't recreate what he saw. He still doesn't color much for fun, but this year I've watched a remarkable change in our First Timeline as we colored the cards for each history stop. Amazing the difference in year.
So, in my mind, I wouldn't worry. I just tried to steer him in different creative ways to develop his motor skills, like cutting, gluing, watercolor, glitter. The boys' favorite thing though is window markers and crayons. That really draws out the creativity.
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: July 01 2010 at 2:23pm | IP Logged
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if she's sensitive to texture consider that she may not want to hold crayons or chalk much at all too which could explain her escaping as soon as possible..
what about markers? or covering part of the chalk with tape or something?
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violingirl
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| Posted: July 06 2010 at 12:20am | IP Logged
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dakotamidnight wrote:
We've done the scribbling with her. That helped slightly. We can work about 10 minutes coloring together before she gets bored and goes back to a book or video.
She doesn't get sidewalk chalk either - we've tried several times but she just doesn't understand coloring with it, even after showing her what other kids had done with it on their driveways.
She won't touch paint with a 10ft pole, especially finger paints. Says they feel "Icky". She will do paint with water sheets on occasion, but mostly it's just wetting the page at random. |
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My oldest (5 in october) wouldn't deal with chalk or finger paints because of texture for a long time too, but we've tried them every few months and in the last 6 months he has grown to really enjoy chalk. Finger painting he still doesn't enjoy, but he does like working with a paint brush now. Perhaps as your daughter gets older she will cope better with the texture?
As for the coloring, I'd like to recommend a book to you- perhaps you already know of it. Young at Art is a book I have really relied on to know what is age appropriate for kids artistically and I thought it was really interesting that in that book the author writes about how each child has a need for stages to last a certain length of time and that it's not pre-set: some kids need to scribble longer than others, and some are ready for more "advanced" work earlier. But she also says that they move to the next stage whenever they are ready, with very little prompting from anyone. My almost 5yo's art work has completely changed in the last year and each day his work gets more and more interesting, with no direction from me. The coloring thing has worked itself out- he totally fills in space now, his drawings show intention, and he's recently concerned himself with thinking about how to make something look real.
I just wanted to let you know that I was kind of asking the same questions about my son when he was your daughter's age and his artwork has grown tremendously in the last year. Perhaps the same might be true for her with a bit of time?
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Teachin'Mine2
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Maybe it's just me, but I don't see the purpose of coloring books either, and neither did my dd. I'd highly recommend some plain paper and lots of different things available for her to use - crayons, colored pencils, gel pens, magic markers, etc. - and let her use her imagination. Sit down at the table and make your own creations too. I suggest different writing instruments because I know my dd hated crayons - still does. They're way too thick to get them to do what she wants. And Kindergarten with all the color the circles red type stuff was torture. (I can see the benefit of drawing within lines when someone older is having trouble with fine motor control, but not for a four year old.)
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ekbell
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| Posted: July 06 2010 at 4:44pm | IP Logged
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My oldest found fine motor control activities (such as coloring in the lines) very, very frustrating at that age.
We simply had to wait (and wait and wait) until her fine motor control was up to the task, while providing less frustating ways to do art.
[as encouragement- despite the fact that I waited until she was seven before starting handwriting and never pushed drawing and coloring, at almost twelve she has beautiful hand writing and spends a fair amount of time drawing and painting.]
The first art activity she really enjoyed was using Ed Emberley's Picture Pie books to make pictures out of pre-cut shapes.
DLTK's Printable Crafts were also fairly popular.
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4Real Forums : The Arts in the Everyday
Topic: ideas for teaching how to color?
