How to Help Your Kindergartener Stop Drawing Potato People!

It is always a totally precious moment when your young child brings you a drawing of a person for the very first time. Often it is a whole lot of scribbles at first but eventually, it begins to resemble a person… or really a potato. 

Little did you know that this is a big developmental step! These hilarious little drawings sometimes stick around for a while. As cute as they are, it is important that your child takes the next developmental leap, too. 

Sometime between the end of preschool and the middle of kindergarten, your student should start drawing people that look more like actual human beings than a root vegetable. 

But how do you get them there? 

Here are three key ways you can help your student develop this important skill while also strengthening those fine motor skills! 

Number One: Practice The Basics! 

Don’t start with a whole person. This is just overwhelming. Whether you are in the classroom or at home with your child, you need to break it down. Go slow to go fast! 

Take the time to practice the basics like drawing vertical and horizontal lines, curved lines, and even basic shapes! Doing this will also help your student strengthen their pencil grip and gain confidence. 

My Prewriting Bundle is a great way to practice these skills at home. These simple, low-prep activities will allow your student to work on the basics daily! Going back to these basics will also help your students when it comes time to write their letters and numbers.

Number Two: Use Shapes! 

Help your students see that everything they draw can be broken down into shapes. It is so much easier to draw a house when you draw it with a square and a rectangle. People are the same way.

Now that you’ve taken the time to go back to the basics and practice shapes and lines, your student will be prepared to create objects and drawings out of these! Show students how to use circles, triangles, and rectangles to make a person.

Number Three: Use My Illustration Unit! 

This is a one-month unit that can be used in the classroom or at home! It focuses on building up basic drawing skills. Students use shapes to draw people, places, and objects while learning to use the right colors and add details to their drawings. 

The unit takes things very slowly, you will walk your students through every step. During this unit they will also learn to follow direct drawings, these are an excellent tool for early illustrators! 

I recommend starting kindergarten off with this unit but it could be used at the end of preschool for some students. If it’s the middle of the school year and you still have potato people showing up in illustrations, it may be time to pause and return to the basics with this unit! 

By doing these three things, your student will quickly go from potatoes and scribbles to recognizable drawings and illustrations! 

Grab the Prewriting Bundle and the Illustration Unit and get started right away. I have so many other developmentally appropriate fine motor-focused resources, directed drawings, and prewriting activities in my TpT Storefront! 
You can read more about my Illustration Unit in this blog or about Prewriting resources in this one!