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Art & design · Years 1-5
How can I teach children to explore texture through marks?
Develop drawn marks for contrasting textures and explain a choice.
Download: Texture mark sampler
A4 PDF · 2 pages · free · no sign-up
Print page 1 for the activity and keep page 2 for teaching notes, answers or review criteria.
Use A4 paper at 100% or Actual size. Suggested years or grades are selection aids, rather than curriculum alignment claims.
How to use this resource
- Try two different marks for rough and discuss how each might suggest a surface.
- Use the supplied example or task brief. Let the learner respond through writing, drawing, discussion or their usual communication method.
- Review the answers or criteria below. Look for intentional experimentation and a named difference between choices.
What is in the printable?
Use a pencil or usual drawing tool. Choose from rough, smooth, soft and ridged. These are drawing prompts; there is no single correct mark for a texture.
- In box 1, invent marks suggesting rough.
- In box 2, invent marks suggesting smooth.
- In box 3, invent marks suggesting soft.
- In box 4, invent marks suggesting ridged.
- Choose two boxes. Explain how your use of spacing, direction or pressure differs.
Make it easier or add challenge
More support
Offer thicker tools, larger spaces, a chosen accessible medium or a spoken description of intended marks.
More challenge
Combine two textures in one drawing and explain how you keep them distinguishable.
What to look for
Look for intentional experimentation and a named difference between choices.
Teacher answers and suggested responses
Open-ended. Look for deliberate differences in marks, such as dense irregular short marks for rough or repeated parallel lines for ridged. These are possibilities, not required answers.
An explanation should identify a visual choice. Do not assess tactile sensitivity, realism or handwriting neatness.
Further teaching guidance
Related guidance from EP for Schools: How can we make art more accessible for pupils with SEND?
Try another activity
Deliver individually or in a small group
Choose one learning aim from this activity. Model one example, work through another together, then give each pupil a turn with a fresh example. In a group, ask everyone to think or show a response before sharing; one confident answer does not show what the whole group understands.
Keep the task’s more-support option available. Allow the usual communication tools, practical materials or drawing where these preserve the learning aim. Reduce the number of examples if needed, rather than rushing through the sheet.
What progress should I look for?
Look for intentional experimentation and a named difference between choices.
Note the example used and whether the response was independent, followed a general prompt or needed a model. Try a different example on a later occasion and look for clearer reasoning or less support on a comparable task. Use these observations to plan the next teaching step.
Printing, access and sharing
Use separate paper or a different recording method when more space or an accessible format is needed. Free to print and copy within your school, setting or family. Retain the website credit and share this teaching page with other settings.