Four Year Olds Love Frankenstein

I need to write this post before it’s completely out of season. Pretend with me that it’s still early November. 

I have two grandsons that are young four year-olds and one of their favorite things to do when I’m around is draw. Surprise. Surprise. This year at Halloween they were obsessed with Frankenstein, so when it was grandma time, it was Frankenstein time. Luckily, I had recorded a Frankenstein ‘how to draw’ video for the Young Rembrandts’s YouTube channel. So, I pulled up the video on my iPad and we drew him together. Overall, it’s an easy drawing, but since they were young, I hit the pause button a few times. Here are their drawings.

They were so excited and proud of what they drew, which made them want to draw more.  That’s my favorite part. But what impressed me most, was what they did after. Every time I saw them, they wanted to draw Frank again, and so we did. But I never had to show them the video again. They had so internalized it; I could verbally walk them through it. I said; “Remember his head is a really big, long rectangle”.  “Add the lines across to make his forehead.” “Now his nose.”  And on and on until they had drawn him. Beautifully.

This is a really big deal. Drawing him repeatedly, helped them internalize the image, making it part of their permanent visual vocabulary. And they saw themselves as pretty cool because they could draw something more complicated. Four years-olds might draw a sun, a simple face, maybe a rainbow, but now Frankenstein! They were proud of themselves and more confident about drawing overall. And the more they draw, the better they’re going to handle writing letters and numbers.

This grandma needs to look at the YouTube channel and find the next cool thing for them to draw! I would love to see what your kids can do with these videos. Post a picture in the comments.