Pick and Draw Game

Pick and Draw is a drawing game of making simple cartoon faces.

Pick and Draw creator Rich Davis sent me a game to review and one to give away.

Each player begins with a blank piece of paper and a pencil with an eraser. The rules are simple. Each player draws a face card, nose card, eyes card, mouth card, hair card, all face down. Flip over your cards and do the best to draw your cartoon face, one piece at a time.

Adorable!

Pick and Draw is a great game for a wide age range. Adults, tweens, teens, and littles can play this one together. Creator Rich Davis asked me for some input as the parent of a child on the autism spectrum. I have trouble looking at a game for just the fun factor; I'm the parent of a child with autism, and I mentally evaluate every game for therapeutic or academic value. I can't help it; it's a Pennyism.

First of all, if you're an RDI® family, or use another developmental or relationship intervention (like Communicating Partners, for example), I think you'll see huge developmental and relationship value here.

The game is simple. Cards. Paper. Pencil. I like that, because it allows the relationship pieces to shine through, as opposed to a game with too many parts and pieces, too many rules. When there are too many game parts, game parts and pieces become objects to stim on. If you have a player that stims on the cards, limit the number you put on the table.

The steps of the game are simple. Turn over the head card. Draw the simple shape of the cartoon character's head. Turn over the nose card. Draw the simple shape. There are no complicated figures to draw. Even an adult like me, who somehow did not seem to inherit her mother's ability to sketch and draw, can copy these shapes. Mom's gift skipped a generation; my kids draw better than I do. Pick and Draw puts me on a level playing field with them.

Here's a bonus: There is no winner. A lot of parents and teachers look for games that grow relationship experience without being competitive. Another bonus: No shuffling of the cards is required. Yet another bonus is that you don't have to hold the cards in your hands. No trying to fan them out for little hands. Pick and Draw isn't that kind of card game.
No reading is involved in Pick and Draw.

Li'l Bit and I had fun with this. We giggled together as we flipped over the cards to see what silly cartoon face we would be making.

There is an opportunity for working on a variety of relationship and academic goals:

Being with. Never discount the value of "being with" your child. Smile. Delight in what they draw. Emotion share at non-verbal levels and with simple words and phrases.
Short and sweet: One game takes maybe five minutes. Sometimes our kids quit trusting us when we push them too far, too long. The fact that we can stop Pick and Draw after one fun round is really positive, it adds to our trustworthiness as a guide and play partner, and it is a foundational piece to attention length and shared attention with other.
Turn-taking: You turn over your card first, and draw it. Then I'll draw mine. You show me what you drew, and I'll show you what I drew.
Visual discrimination and imitation. Is the head/face shape a rectangle or oval or circle? There's a difference. If you turn the cards upside down, can you draw the face and features upside down, turn it right side up, and it look like a face?
Visual memory: Can we look at card or series of cards for 15 seconds, turn them over, and draw them from memory?
Coordination: Let's flip over our cards together and draw them together.
Non-verbal interaction: Scrunch your mouth like the one you just drew. Make an "ooooOOOOoooo" ing sound of surprise when your child draws something fun. Gesture. Families who are spotlighting different aspects, different channels of non-verbal communication will find opportunities here.

Perspective taking: Flip over your card, show it to the other players, give them time to view it, say, "See what I got!" After you draw it, hold up your drawing, let everyone see. Players who need practice referencing and shifting attention have lots of opportunities here.

Declaratives and Experience Sharing Language: "See what I got!" "Look what I made!" "Look what you made!" "I love it!" "Mine is silly looking!" Resist the urge to question your child. Slow down, wait for him/her to speak. Avoid prompting for speech. To borrow from Dr. Jim, make yourself "possible" for your child. Pick and Draw gives you the background activity to do just that.

Collaboration: All of the players could take turns penciling/drawing one piece of one cartoon, passing the paper and pencil around from player-to-player. Or the players could get up from their seats and move clockwise around the table, drawing parts on different pictures.

Comparison: All of the players could draw the same cartoon from the same cards. Or not. Either way, decide whose is biggest? Meanest looking? Silliest? Neatest? Messiest?

Variations on a theme (same but different, different but same; "just noticeable differences"): Use different kinds of paper and pencils, pens, markers. We used markers on the back of square paper plates for our first game. (We forgot to freestyle some ears onto our cartoon faces.) Play in different places. We played cross-legged facing one another on the couch.

Use those little pencils you only see at church, miniature golf, and IKEA or some teeny pieces from broken crayons and you have the set up for some fine motor work and a good tripod grasp.

You could draw side by side at a white board. For the child who needs gross motor activity, big cartoons at a white board might be exactly what the PT ordered.

Learning from past experience and creative problem solving (don't forget to model this with self-talk, aloud): "Last time, I didn't draw my head big enough and ran out of room. This time, I'm going to draw the head bigger."

Identifying shapes, hopefully, with declaratives. "My cartoon guy's eyes are ovals!"

Episodic memory: Looking back at cartoons you made earlier, remark about how you laughed so hard when you drew that funny face! You could use an art pad or binder for the game in order to save your drawings and look back on them, or you could put your drawings on the refrigerator wall of fame.

Creativity and more being with: Add features not on the deck of cards. Ears. Hat. Mustache. Chin hairs. (ew)

Self-discovery: I'm a cartoonist! I'm an artist! I'm creative!

Experience sharing: Who does yours look like?
Workboxes: Give your student two sets each feature, tell him/her to draw four unique faces using those 10 cards. How many different combinations could one draw with two sets of features? That's a math problem!

Creativity: Make up a background or story about your character. Creator Rich Davis includes idea starting suggestions with the deck. Give your drawing a name. What does he/she like to do or is good at? What's his/her favorite kind of music?

You could make your own game variation where one person looks at the cards and describes for the other what to draw, building listening skills and describing skills. That would be fun in teams.
For a child who isn't able to hold a pen or pencil, Mom or Dad could draw approximations of the shapes on clear plastic sheets (I'm thinking of the kind you'd use on an overhead projector) and layer the plastic sheets for a cartoon face. (Might be a lot of work).
The games would make great gifts for teachers, speech therapists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, professionals who work with children with developmental delays.
I suspect that Pick and Draw would be a great game for a dyad or triad of children learning to navigate relationships and friendships.
Mom Jenny Herman reminded me that the deck of cards fits in your purse. Great for waiting rooms. All you need is a notebook. Those teeny, fit-in-your-palm-sized notebooks w/ the spiral at the top would be great.
That's my short list. *wink* What ideas do you have? I'd love to hear from you.
Rich Davis blogs here. Be sure to check out some of the new cartoons he demonstrates there. You can order your own game, here.

Rich Davis, the creator of Pick and Draw, sent me a game to review, at no charge, and a second game to give away. I am not paid for this review and am not obligated to provide a positive review.