During these days whenever the weather allows it, I try to spend time with the kids outdoors to prevent them from fooling around with electronics. Sometimes they need good incentives to get out of the house. It is a good idea to take some of their toys outside too, but you need to enrich their game with different activities which they can’t do in their bedroom. In this case I urged my little one to combine two of his favorite activities: playing with dinosaurs and drawing and do some dinosaur shadow drawing.
What you need
You don’t need to have a big yard to carry out this project. All you need is the sun. See when it is sunny on your balcony and use your table or just the floor and put a piece of paper there as your canvas. Your kid has to set up his toys in a row next to each other so that they face the sun. When you think that they have been aglined so as to create shadows behind them, your kid is ready to start drawing their outline. It is preferrable to use a pencils so that you can correct your designs afterwards. Alternatively, you don’t have to set up all the dinos at once. Especially for younger ages, it will be easier to place each item on the paper in turns.
We happened to have this roll of paper, which delights children as they can make huge paintings.
What to expect
When the shadow drawing is completed, you will realize that certain details are missing. Your kid has to draw the eyes and any other parts of the dinosaurs that couldn’t be depicted at the shadow.
Kids can have a sense of achievement when they see the result and this activity can push them to get involved in painting more and boost their self-confidence regarding their drawing talent.
If your kid isn’t a big fan of dinosaurs or if you want to try with other figures too, you can use other items like dolls or toy cars.
Last touch
When the designs are ready, you can add more sketches, like volcanoes, comets or trees, and color them with any type of paints you have. In case your kid doesn’t want to complete his art with color, you can let them enjoy it like this and maybe you can suggest to finish it another day.
I’m glad my sister suggested as this activity because it was great fun for us!
If you have a little dinosaur enthusiast at home, stay tuned for more ideas.