Though early childhood practitioners often cite colouring as a useful way to train fine motor skills and pencil grip, I have never bought colouring books for any of my kids before as I do not perceive colouring as a necessary or fun activity for tots and preschoolers.
I can easily name another 20 activities that hone multiple skills in addition to training fine motor skill and pencil grip and are still more fun than colouring. Hence I used to donate all the colouring books that well-intended friends and relatives gave the boys as they showed no interest in them.
The boys love drawing and used to draw several hours a day. Occasionally, when they obliged with my requests to add colours to their beautiful drawings, they would hastily fill an area with some random colours that they picked out of the box. They never had any desire to perfect their colouring technique, unlike the Dolly, who is just obsessed. Haha!
When she was younger, she would get really frustrated whenever she coloured out of lines, despite my assurance that it was alright. She would start all over again and be so persistent and focused in her efforts for nearly all pieces.
Upon our encouragement, she began drawing. At first, we gave a little guidance to get her started. But soon, she was off on her own, fueled only by her own enthusiasm, imagination and observation. We did our part by providing a constant supply of drawing and colouring materials and gave feedback and suggestions.
Naturally, with the hours that she laboured over her art, by the time she was 3, we already had a thick pile of colourful pictures.
The following pieces are just a random selection of what she drew/coloured in the last 12 months.
She draws several hours daily whenever she is home. Like a drawing factory, she churns out 5 - 10 pieces a day. Now that she is a month shy of turning 5, we have hundreds of good pieces in our collection. More on that in the next post.
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