Art Games: Draw with Art Dice

I’m always happy to land on fun art games that entertain my children and help their brains develop. I originally blogged about these handmade art dice last Spring, and thought you might like to see how this popular tool is getting used by 2-year old daughter #2.

I started with a set of blank wooden blocks. If you don’t have wood blocks, you could make your own by folding paper into a cube shape. I’ll include a link to a template that you can print at the end of this post.

My toddler gathered a set of art dice, markers, and a sheet of paper, and then decided to cozy up in my bed with one of those funny lap pillow-tables. I didn’t tell her what to do, so I can only assume that she’s seen her sister use these dice before when she turned the die to orange, selected an orange marker, and then proceeded to make an orange circle.

One of the dice is covered with a variety of lines, and we practiced making long lines, short lines, wavy lines, and zig-zag lines.

And then she returned to work on color.

The part that I enjoyed the most was watching her engage in this self-directed activity for close to twenty minutes. Every now and then she’d invite me to draw with her or ask me the name of a color, but for the most part little R was engaged with making connections between the images on the dice and what came out of her pen.

I first did this with my older daughter when she was two, and at four, we still use these every now and then. I use them too as a way to jog my imagination when I’m in a drawing rut. And my 4-year old and I will use them together to make collaborative drawings. Check out the original Art Dice article for more game ideas.

If you make your own art dice (they make great gifts!) and give ’em a spin, I’d love to hear about how it goes for you. Here are a few inspiring links from a couple of my readers…

Art Games: More Art Dice Inspiration

I love seeing how Barbara used art dice to teacher her 2nd graders about line and primary colors.

In this post, Heather, Vice President of the University of Victoria Art Education Student Association created paper templates that you can simply print, cut, and glue. Easy peasy. Thanks Heather!! Color, Line, Shape 

Jean at the Artful Parent is also a fan of art games. Here are a few of my favorites from her site:

• Quiet Time Art Drawing for Children
• Back and Forth Drawing
• Using Frames for Drawing
• DIY Mazes and Dot-to-Dots (we did this ALL the time when my oldest was three).