The Power of Children’s Scribbles: What Rhoda Kellogg Taught Us About Art and Development

At PLAYDAY, we believe that every child is naturally creative. Long before children can write words or explain their ideas, they express themselves through marks, lines, and shapes.

What may look like “scribbling” to adults is actually something much deeper — a universal language of childhood.

This idea comes largely from the groundbreaking work of Rhoda Kellogg, a pioneering researcher who spent decades studying how young children draw.

Who Was Rhoda Kellogg?

Rhoda Kellogg was an educator and researcher who collected and analyzed over one million children’s drawings from around the world. Through this enormous body of work, she discovered something remarkable:

Children everywhere — regardless of culture, language, or background — tend to draw the same basic shapes and patterns.

Her research showed that children’s early drawings follow natural developmental patterns, much like learning to walk or talk.

Rather than random scribbles, children are actually practicing the building blocks of visual thinking.

The Universal Shapes of Childhood

Kellogg identified around 20 basic scribble types that appear in children’s drawings across cultures. These include:

• Vertical and horizontal lines

• Circular motions

• Crosses and X-shapes

• Spirals

• Radiating lines (often called “sun” forms)

As children grow, they begin combining these shapes into more complex designs such as mandalas, suns, and diagrams.

These early patterns are the foundation for later drawing of houses, people, animals, and stories.

In other words: scribbling is the beginning of visual language.

Why Scribbling Matters

When children draw freely, they are developing critical skills:

Motor development

Repeated marks strengthen the muscles needed for writing.

Spatial awareness

Children learn how shapes relate to each other on a page.

Symbolic thinking

A circle can become a face, a sun, or a ball — the beginning of imagination and storytelling.

Confidence and self-expression

When children feel their work is valued, they become more willing to explore and create.

The PLAYDAY Philosophy

At PLAYDAY, we design our art experiences with these ideas in mind.

Instead of focusing on copying a perfect example, we encourage children to:

• Experiment with marks and materials

• Explore shapes and patterns

• Follow their own creative instincts

• Build confidence through self-expression

Every line, swirl, and scribble is part of a child discovering how they see the world.

Rhoda Kellogg believed children flourish artistically when adults value the process rather than the product.

Here are a few simple ways PLAYDAY supports young artists:

We provide open-ended materials:

Large paper, crayons, markers, chalk, and paint encourage exploration.

We avoid correcting drawings

Resist the urge to show children “how to draw it right.”

We celebrate the marks

Ask questions like “Tell me about your drawing.”

Every Mark Matters

When we look at a child’s scribble with curiosity instead of judgment, we see something extraordinary: the earliest stages of human creativity.

Rhoda Kellogg helped the world understand that children’s art is not messy practice — it is meaningful development in action.

At PLAYDAY, we celebrate those first marks, because they are the beginning of every artist’s journey.