Shape Tracers Free Sketchbook Prompt

Prompt:

Cut out various shapes from scrap cardboard. Big and little squares and rectangles, triangles, arches, circles, ovals- whatever you want. Cut up cereal boxes are my go-to when possible, but amazon boxes or any scrap cardboard works too! What can you make?

Materials:

Pencil (I don’t always recommend pencil because it’s erasable nature tends to make little kids want to erase erase erase and be perfectionists, but tracing practice is much easier with a nice small tip to hug the edges of your tracing pieces!)

Paint sticks

Acrylic paint

Sharpie

You can show your kiddos what the cardboard shapes look like and do if you manipulate them on the table before you begin. Stack them up, flip the shapes upside down. Can you make buildings? Buildings with windows and doors and rooftops and chimneys? What else?

Before I started my ebook I worried and worried that people might not like it if it only included pictures of Sally working. I worried that it was too narrow a focus and might not translate well for a wider audience hoping to use the book with a variety of kids. So I spent hours and hours with the big girls, too, working through each prompt to have a wide variety of examples to share in the book. I cherish the hours spent chatting and creating inside the pages of their sketchbooks. They’re so special. But I truly adore the images I’ve captured of little miss Sally Lyn making, making, making so many hours of our day. This sketchbook prompt in particular was a total WIN. Look at the concentration on her face!

I absolutely adore watching these simple art processes unfold. I swear I start with an idea in my head of what the prompt will produce and am always pleasantly surprised with how different it ends up becoming for each kid. Same prompt, always a different process and result!

Here are some photos of Lilly and Gracie’s pages from this same prompt: