Why might a finger be better than a pencil or crayon at the moment?
When your toddler uses their finger to make a line in mud, paint or spilt food, they use their visual, touch and proprioceptive senses together to understand the movement. As they watch their finger they see a line or squiggle appear, they feel the mixture on their skin, and sense the movement in their finger, hand, wrist and arm.
The information from these three senses helps your toddler adjust their movements to make the line or squiggle they want to. At first, they might simply move their finger in different ways to see how this changes the line.
While your toddler will benefit from using pencils, crayons, sticks and other tools to make lines and squiggles – using their finger instead can be great as this really helps them link their movements and marks.
As they explore paint or food, they might move between using their whole hand to really feel the movement and using a single finger to watch how they can change the patterns and marks – so it’s worth being prepared for some mess!
Your toddler’s squiggles aren’t only about developing physical and sensory skills
Some researchers think babies' and toddlers’ first lines and squiggles are just connected to developing physical and sensory skills, but others think that young children use marks to help them think.[1]
If your toddler is interested in understanding the concept of up and down, you might notice they often choose to climb, or jump, but also that they draw lines. They might develop their ideas about quantity by drawing lots of squiggles, lines or dots.
While these early marks can look a bit messy, and sometimes be written off as ‘just scribble’, your toddler might be developing their understanding of important concepts as they draw and write.
So, try not to judge their first pictures based on if they look nice, or be tempted to rush them to draw a recognisable face or object. Give them freedom to explore and see if you can spot the ideas they’re learning about through their artwork.
References:
Brierley, J. (2018). ‘Are we underestimating 2-year-olds? Recognising the links between schema and mark making, implications for future pedagogy’. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 16(2), 119-225.