Drawing Game

Here’s a quick game we’ve been playing lately that keeps my children entertained, with minimal effort from me, while I’m cooking dinner or doing the dishes

Take a piece of paper and fold into 8 parts. Grab your textas or crayons.

You will give your children a prompt and they draw something inspired by that prompt in one of the spaces on the paper.

When they are done, you provide another prompt to use for the next space.

Prompts that I have been using include descriptive words that can be interpreted many ways:

different types of lines and patterns: wavy, zigzag, squiggly, straight, curved, broken, pointy, spiral, curly
shapes: circle, triangle, star, heart, round, cross, square, closed, organic, angular
textures: bumpy, jagged, smooth, stripy, dotty
movements to make: scribble, fast, slow
size: tiny, long, short, thick, thin
I don’t use words like dog, tree, house or person that will result in everyone drawing the same thing.

This game is a great exercise in creative thinking, a descriptive vocabulary builder and provides drawing practise.

Here’s an example from my eldest son:

Drawing Game

The eight prompts were cross, triangle, wavy, big (this is dad and dad has a big belly), curvy, spotty (this is a spotty dog – not sure why he didn’t give the dog spots in the picture, but he drew this because dogs have spots), long, curly. 

Different children will interpret this differently.  Some will draw an object that represents the word you have said.  Some will fill the space with a pattern that represents the word.  My youngest son was more likely to fill his spaces with a pattern, for example, lots of crosses or lots of dots. 

Comments

katepickle said…
Oh my kids would love this game... I think my nine year olds would also love to then write a story to go with the pictures!
Luísa Pinto said…
Great ideia!
I will try with my 5 years old!
What a fun art activity! It's always interesting to see what kids can come up with given a little freedom to use their imagination!
Unknown said…
Ooo it will be interesting to see how the 3 yr old interprets these.
Here's a drawing game for slightly older that I loved growing up.