Guidance was provided by a trained art educator. Each series of eight one hour classes began with a slide lecture that two year old parents were required to attend. The slides showed parents what went on during the classes and prepared them for the age appropriate graphic skills that their child would manifest. Slides of early scribbles explaining placement and implied form were shown. Suggestions were given of different ways that parents could interact with his/her son or daughter. Warnings about “messy” materials were discussed.

Parents were encouraged to work with their child, to interact in a playful way using lines and markings that were non-pictorial, that simply flowed across the page enjoying the color and movement of the pen. In this way their child could also draw with them without feeling inhibited and the parent could play a supportive role in the early development of hand and eye coordination and language that accompanied the markings, which often led to early story telling.

Put another way, the two year old class was to educate the parents about how to support and interact with their children, and to give the children the opportunity to draw freely to coordinate hand and eye movement and to stimulate brain development. The purpose was not to teach the children how to draw pictures.

The philosophy was that given the support, encouragement and opportunity to develop skill with the materials each child would begin advancing, gaining confidence discovering enclosures according to his or her internal clock. Parents were guided to have conversations with their child about what he or she was drawing. Stories that went along with the lines were an important creative part of the activity. Furthermore, learning could be fun. It was play. It was pleasurable for the adults and children. Children’s attention spans lengthened. Cognition grew.