Trace a Rabbit, Then Draw It Yourself

Two boxes share this page. The left one holds a large rabbit printed in pale grey, ready to be traced with a pencil; the right one is empty, for the child's own rabbit drawn afterwards. Across the top run the four steps, outline first, with the new lines of each step in orange. Tracing the grey rabbit teaches the hand the route round the ears and the paws; drawing it again beside, without the grey, is the kindergarten child's first drawing from memory of the shape just traced.

The two boxes are the same size on purpose, so the second rabbit has room to be as big as the first. Tracing a whole animal is a different exercise from tracing letters: the lines curve, cross and loop, and the pencil has to keep a steady pressure for a long run. Doing it once with help and once without is the whole method of this how-to-draw page.

Print it on plain paper; the grey model prints as a light tone on any printer and there is nothing to mark. The next page of the family removes the grey model and offers dotted shapes instead; the finish page offers a half-drawn horse. The child draws the animal from its own steps; letter tracing, grid-copy pixels and symmetry drawing have their own pages.