Following directions drawing activity

10 Following Directions Drawing Activity Ideas for Preschoolers

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Strong listening skills are very important during early childhood and can easily be developed through fun activities and games. 

One fun idea to try with your kindergartners and preschoolers is a ‘following directions drawing activity’. This means children must listen to your instructions and draw what you are telling them to draw.

These can be random instructions (put a square in the top corner of the page, then colour it in blue), or instructions that build on each other to create an image (put a triangle on top of the square – to make a picture of a house).

Following oral directions to draw a picture is not an easy activity, but it’s a great way to build listening skills in early childhood. 

It requires children to listen carefully, concentrate, filter out distractions, remember what the adult has said, process the directions in their minds, and then put those instructions into practice on paper.

This is also a good activity to practise at home with your child. All you need to get started are paper and pencils/crayons.  

Here are some things to consider before beginning:

• Start out easy and increase in difficulty from basic to challenging. 
  
• Consider your child’s level and also whether they have tried this type of activity in the past. 
  
• Your directions are the right fit if kids can follow along as you are giving instructions and are able to put your commands into practice in their drawings. 
  
• If they are struggling through each direction, the activity is too complicated and it won’t be beneficial to them. 

For kids around 4 years, begin by asking them to draw just one or two things, individually. By 5 years, many children are able to draw basic pictures by following your step-by-step directions. 

Try including different concepts, such as counting, prepositions (positional words), directions (right & left), colours, shapes and sizes.  

You can introduce your children to these concepts before the activity if you’d like. 

Finally:

• Give one direction at a time and include plenty of wait time for kids to complete each step.
  
• When they are ready, you can start including two instructions or concepts in steps, such as, “draw a triangle under the circle.” Try these 2 step directions to give your kids practice following multi-step directions.

Here are some listen and draw activity instructions to refer to as examples. Use these as they are or change them to fit your child’s maturity and readiness. 

1. Draw a Garden

• Draw some flowers on the ground.
• Add a tree on the ground.
• Draw a bird flying over the flowers and tree.
• Add raindrops in the air.
• Draw a worm on the ground.

2. Draw a Happy Monster

• Draw a big circle.
• Add a smile inside the circle.
• Draw 3 eyes inside the circle.
• Draw 2 noses inside the circle.
• Add 5 legs around the circle.

3. Draw a Snowman

• Draw a circle.
• Add a smaller circle on top of that.
• Draw an even smaller circle on top of that one.
• Add a rectangle on the very top for a hat.
• Draw a smiley face inside the top circle.
• Draw 2 eyes in the top circle.
• Add a triangle for a nose in the top circle.
• Add 2 arms to the middle circle.
• Draw 3 round buttons inside the middle circle.

4. Draw a Colourful Picture

• Draw something purple at the bottom of your paper.
• Add something green above the purple object.
• Draw something red on the left side of your page.
• Add something blue next to the red object.
• Draw something orange at the top of your paper.

5. Draw a Shape Robot

• Draw a square in the middle of your paper.
• Add a triangle on top of the square.
• Draw two circles at the bottom of the square.
• Add 2 small circles inside the square for the eyes.
• Draw 2 rectangles onto the square for arms.

6. Draw an Autumn Picture

• Draw 3 black trees with empty branches.
• Add orange leaves to one of the trees.
• Add red leaves to another tree.
• Add yellow leaves to the last tree.
• Draw orange, red and yellow leaves on the ground.
• Add a yellow sun in the sky.

7. Draw a Playground

• Draw green grass at the bottom of your page.
• Add a yellow sun at the top of the paper.
• Draw a black slide on top of the grass.
• Add a brown swing set next to the slide.
• Draw a blue stick person playing on the playground.

8. Draw a Silly Car

• Draw a rectangle lying on its side in the middle of your paper.
• Add 2 circles underneath the rectangle for wheels.
• Add 2 squares inside the rectangle for windows.
• Draw half a circle on top of the rectangle.
• Add a road underneath your car.

9. Draw a Message

• Draw an eyeball near the bottom left of your paper.
• Add a red heart to the right of (next to) the eyeball.
• Write the letter “U” to the right of the red heart.
• Draw a colourful rainbow near the top of your paper.

10. Draw an Underwater Picture

• Draw short green weeds at the bottom of the paper.
• Draw a red fish in the middle of your page.
• Add a purple fish next to the red fish.
• Draw a brown boat on the left side of your paper.
• Add a black octopus with 8 arms at the bottom of the page.
• Lightly colour over your whole picture with a blue crayon.

These ‘following directions’ drawing ideas are just a few samples. Change them any way you want to fit with your kids’ learning level and personal interests.

To keep developing listening skills, try some of these listening activities for kids or play one of these great listening games:

• Broken telephone
• Simon says
• Odd one out game
• Musical statues

Read more about the importance of listening skills in early childhood.

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Following Directions Activities for kids - Engage The Brain

Ask 100 schoolteachers what the number one skill their students need to work on is, and the likely answer: listening. A close second: following directions.

There are many theories as to why today’s students seem to have a harder time listening and following directions. Some blame too much screen time and not enough interaction with other humans. Some cite the break down of the modern family, hectic schedules and the disappearance of the family dinner.

Whatever the cause of the seemingly cotton-filled ears of students populating modern classrooms, there is a solution. Listening skills can be taught and practiced.

Engage the Brain curated some listening activities that parents can do with their kids. (Attribution is below each activity.) The activities are divided into two age groups: Elementary and Middle, though many high school students could benefit from some of these activities, too.

A key to engaging a child your in these activities is to have fun. Set these activities up as games. Challenge your child to improve his listening skills. Like any new skill, listening takes consistent practice over a period of time. Set a goal of practicing listening skills several times a week.

Without further ado… Here are the listening activities:

1. Sticker directions

Materials: index card, colorful circle stickers, a pen

Give your child the following instructions:

1   Take the green sticker and put it in the top left corner.

2   Take the orange sticker and put it in the bottom right corner.

3   Take the pink sticker and put it in the center of the card.

4   Get your pencil out and put a smiley face in the pink sticker. The smiley face should have two eyes and a mouth.

The Handy School Counselor Blog

Materials: paper, pen

Draw a 3 by 3 grid on a piece of paper. Place lower and upper case letters in the boxes. Create a set of set directions for you child to follow:

1. I am not a capital letter.

2. I am not the letter X or the letter V.

3. I am not a vowel.

4. I am in any row but the last row.

5. I come after the letter N in the alphabet.

3. Listen and Color

Materials: paper divided into boxes with various shapes drawn in each box. You can make the activity more challenging by adding more rows and more shapes.

Follow the directions and color.

1. Color the first diamond yellow.

2. Color the square red and green.

3. Color the first shape purple.

4. Draw a big blue dot in the middle of the third shape.

1. 

Materials: white drawing paper, pencil or pen

Give these directions orally to your child. Tell your child that you will only be reading each step of the directions twice, so they need to pay close attention.

Step 1: Turn your paper horizontally. That means “landscape” or long ways.

Step 2: Draw a two-inch five-point star in the left hand corner. The top point and the left point should touch the edge of the paper.

Step 3: Now, move your pencil to the middle of the paper. Draw a one-inch square. Shade or color in the square.

Step 4 : On the bottom right hand corner of the paper, draw a two inch circle. Leave about a one-inch margin, which means to come over one inch on the edge of each side of the paper. Inside the circle, draw a happy face.

Step 5: For the last object, you are going to draw a two-inch equal lateral triangle. It goes in the top right hand corner. Leave a one-inch margin on both edges of the paper.

How does the picture look?

Bright Hub Education

2. 

Materials: Origami paper, directions

Origami is a challenging activity when you can see the directions. Challenge your child to make a pelican from only your oral directions.

Origami Pelican

1. Start with your paper white side up. Fold in half, along the line shown, then open out again.

2. Fold the outside corners into the center line and crease well.

3. Mystery Pictures

Materials: white drawing paper, pen or pen

Draw a picture using common shapes on a piece of paper; don’t let your child see your drawing. (Example below) Give your child a piece of paper and give her directions so she can try to replicate your picture on her paper. After you are done, compare the pictures.

Now switch! Let her draw a picture and give you the directions to try and recreate the picture on her paper.
How to draw funny cartoons

Wrapping it up

No doubt you have experienced a bout of selective listening with your child. It tends to kick in when a child is asked to start his homework, clean her room, or complete some other unnecessary task that distracts from fun and entertainment. (Editor’s note: Dad’s can suffer from this affliction too.)

The listening activities listed above are suggestions and starting points. With a little creativity these activities can be used many times with just slight tweaks. And the challenge level can be adjusted easily up or down too. With consistent practice in a fun atmosphere, a child can improve his listening skills. It will benefit him in school, life and career.

David Karch (Learning Specialist with Engage the Brain)

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