I've been teaching art/drawing classes for over 15+ years. In these classes, students will learn by example. Students learn when to draw light and when to draw dark. (draw light until you have it right.) Students learn different shading techniques, that mechanical pencils are  for precision,  regular pencils are good for drawing large areas of texture.  It is also important that students learn to control their pencil, and use a variety of different line sizes and shapes. In my classes there will be lots of random tips like how to keep from smudging your artwork to how to keep the main focus, THE MAIN FOCUS. Pencil drawing is known to help students recall information better. It forces them to process information in different ways. Many students like myself are visual learners. So we are doodlers.  Drawing is very calming and very gratifying as well.  If you have a student who is a visual learner or hands on learner, I would like to suggest more drawings into their studies. Examples: (Make a poster, Draw the story that he/she is to write about, hide spelling words in a pictures to see if mom can find them, sketch something that they learned today.)
January 24th: Draw a dinosaur (texture, skin, shading, line)
January 31st: Silly Sea Horse: (creating bubbles, shading, texture, skin, creating hollow areas, blending,  correct proportion)
February 7th: Bird Head: (feathers, using different textures to create a different color, overlapping, shading, direction of the light) 
February 14th: Ancient Scroll: (techniques in: creating the rolling of the scroll, wrinkles, creating torn parts, background, and shading)
 Once you've joined, you will be able to see a few weeks in advance of what we will be drawing.    
 I hope to see your child in my relaxed weekly drawing classes.