14307_10_PM1Words communicate, so can words in picture form communicate even more? Yes, according to my little friends who dove right into Faber-Castell’s “Do Art Word Art.” First big sister filled in the elephant outline with big, playful, wild, fun, nice, and smile with the markers and erasable crayons, running words down the legs body and ear. Next, the dolphin  was adorned with love, faithful and playful stickers. As time went on, it was fascinating to watch her play move to completely creative drawing her own fish, and a dachshund she named “Long Dog”–fast, cute, short but sweet, zzzzz, brave, friend, ending with a plate of cookies with a word filling each one–yum, sweet, tasty, color, fun. What a creative way to get kids to think of a favorite object, animal or character,  words to describe it, and then fill in the outline using decorative printing or embellishments to reflect the character of the word. Teachers will love this activity as it inspires descriptive writing, and association as kids brainstorm on how to make “bee” look like a bee–maybe add some wings? or “big” could be in all large capital letters. Having fun with words can strengthen kids’ reading and writing skills.

Available at Faber-Castell. Click here