If you have a pen and some paper, you can entertain your kid while you wait at a restaurant or doctor’s office.  Heck, you don’t even have to have paper.  Try a napkin or even the back of your hand!

Just draw some lines or shapes…

Then hand over the pen to your kid.  See if they can make your scribbles into a doodle.  (These are a flower, two clowns, and a caterpillar courtesy of my four-year-old daughter.)

Preschoolers: They can do it with a little help!

• Demonstrate how to turn a line or shape into a drawing.
• Use simple geometric shapes (square, circle, triangle)
• Help them get started by brainstorming with them.  “It’s a circle.  What things have circle shapes?  Maybe it could be a face.  Or a wheel on a car?  Can you think of other things with circles?
• If the activity is still too difficult, switch it up!  Your kid can make a few marks on a paper and YOU turn it into a picture!

Elementary: Elementary aged kids should be able to make doodles without much prompting.  They might even need an extra challenge.

• Draw several lines on one paper and see if they can connect them all into one drawing!
• Can they make all the drawings fit in one category (food, animal)?
• Draw several of the same shape or line (example- 5 squares all the same size).  Challenge them to make each one into a different drawing.