5 End of The Year Drawing Ideas

5 Easy Drawing Ideas

Around May, I start to see social media posts from teachers looking for lesson ideas on how to wrap up the school year. Teachers need some low-prep and engaging one-day lesson ideas to use with classes that you’ll only see 1 or 2 times before school is out.

Drawing is perfect for this because it is not messy, quick to prep, and you can start packing up all your paints and brushes while students are working!

These lessons require minimal setup and can be adjusted to fit your students’ needs and skill levels.

1) Blind Contour Drawing

Blind contour drawing is a great drawing idea to improve hand-eye coordination and observational skills. Have your students choose an object in the room and draw it without looking at their paper. Encourage them to focus on the contours and shapes of the object rather than the details. I like having students imagine their pencils touching the surface of what they are drawing and traveling along the edges. Have students try making a blind contour drawing of their hand.

2) Continuous Line Drawing

Encourage your students to create a continuous line drawing by keeping their pencil on the paper and not lifting it until the drawing is complete. This drawing idea will challenge them to think about the object’s form and shape in a different way. If you need an easy subject idea, have students draw their shoes!

3) Nature Drawing

As a follow-up, take students outside to draw! Have them find a leaf, flower, or plant to draw. Let them choose to do a blind contour or continuous line drawing. Be sure to explain how to do these while you are inside, or use this as a bonus lesson for classes that did the blind contour and continuous line contour lesson quietly and focused.

4) Collaborative Drawing

Collaborative drawing is a fun drawing idea to encourage teamwork and creativity in your classroom. Have your students create a drawing together in pairs or small groups. Each student takes turns adding to the drawing, building on the previous student’s work. You can get started by giving each student a 9×12 piece of paper. Play music while they draw, and when the music stops, they pass their paper to the right – kinda like musical chairs. If students are stuck on how to get started, here are 3 starting points:

1. Start with a loopy line and make an abstract work of art.
2. Start with the feet of a creature (don’t limit yourself to just 2) and let each artist work their way up to the top.
3. Start with a horizon line and invent a new world.

5) Roll & Draw Drawings

Of course, I love having students use Roll & Draw pages as a fun drawing activity! If you’ve ever shied away from doing a Roll & Draw because you don’t have dice or don’t like the sound of students rolling 30 dice at once, you can use my virtual dice roller! It’s actually a Youtube video of the dice roll. Students press pause to make a selection and play to start rolling again. You can also use the virtual roller on Expressive Monkey’s Blog.

You can find my Roll & Draw pages on my website store and TPT.

Here are some Roll & Draw ideas that are popular right now (click images for links):

Summing it Up

I hope these drawing lessons inspire you and your students to get creative and have fun with art. Thank you for all that you do to teach and encourage our students.

So, whether it’s collaborative blind contour drawing, continuous line drawing, nature drawing, collaborative drawing, or a Roll & Draw drawing, the key is to motivate students to be creative, take risks, and have fun with art.

P.S. If you are a parent, keep these ideas handy to use during the summer when your kids are bored on a rainy day or a family art night.

Question

What drawing lessons have worked well for you during the last few weeks of school?

Use this infographic to display in your room or share with parents, administrators, or other teachers as a way to point out some of the academic benefits of learning to draw. While they are not the only reason for using drawing as part of a balanced curriculum, they are certainly worthy of celebrating and may help you advocate for including drawing as part of your art or classroom learning experiences.

You can read more about The Benefits of Drawing in this blog post.

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