Listen And Draw Activities For Kindergarten

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 the 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 3 years, begin with asking them to draw just one or two things, individually. By 4 or 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 with 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 1 circle
Add 1 smaller circle on top of that
Draw 1 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 onto 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 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 1 tree
Add red leaves to 1 tree
Add yellow leaves to 1 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 child's learning level and personal interests!

To keep developing your child's 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.