Monday, January 3, 2011

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.

47 comments:

Anonymous said...

ooh, this sounds like a good game for our family! My oldest, just happens to have Down Syndrome (and a few other alphabet soup dx) and could use the fine motor activities that drawing encourages and the thought that the game is simple enough for all ages makes it even better!

LadySnow said...

My family would love this game. We have 4 children (under the age of 8) and struggle to find something that the whole family can play. This would be perfect!

Bekah and Corey said...

My three kids are close in age (7.5, 6.5 and 5). My middle child has ASD. He and his younger brother rarely played together, largely because my ASD son is so rigid in his play and it drives youngest son nuts. Lately that has improved, and it warms my heart to see the boys playing together or all three kids playing and having fun together. Pick and Draw sounds like the perfect thing for them to do together. Please enter me!
~ thehuets@gmail.com

Jenny said...

Wow, I'm the first comment! I would love this because my son LOVES to draw (it calms him) and like you said, I'm not that great either. It would also be a great fit for our new kindergarten home school! : )

manyhatsmommy AT gmail DOT com

Jenny said...

I "liked" pick n draw on their Facebook page. Thanks!

Dawn said...

I would love this - our family LOVES to play games!

the Mcclanahan 7 said...

We love to play games and my kids like to draw, so this game would be so much fun for our family.

Liz said...

This game looks fabulous! It is something both of my kiddos (who are 7 and 3 1/2) can do together....without fighting! lol

Liz said...

I "like" Pick and Draw on Facebook. :)

Unknown said...

Would love this game for all the reasons you stated in your post. I have a five year old Autistic son, this is something both he and my NT 4 year old would love. sharpefamily0824@sbcglobal.net

Unknown said...

I have just "liked" Pick and Draw on Facebook. sharpefamily0824@sbcglobal.net

Wendi said...

We have been wanting this game for soooo long. We are working on drawing skills and techniques and I love how this game gives one the skills to think outside of the box and to carry those skills into other drawing areas. I fun game for everyone, and for all ages, and no competition is the best.

Wendi said...

I am a Pick n Draw FB fan.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for providing an opportunity to win a family game. My youngest has apraxia and it's hard to find a game that he can play and that helps his speech, along with being able to play with the whole family also. Thanks again! :) Cassandra
fdldd@mchsi . com

Unknown said...

Penny, what an awesome game, thanks for posting on this! We would love this game in our house. My oldest has Aspergers and my youngest has speech and language difficulties. Both of them have fine motor difficulties. How fun to use your hands to draw a silly face instead of writing boring ol' spelling words. And the fun we could have talking about emotions and making up stories about the looks on the faces. Plus, all four of us could play and noone would have an advantage! What I love best is that it is not a competitive game!

katyadvocare@gmail.com said...

I'm so excited about the game, simple enough for me and dd, ds can add extra details and it will be great for car travel. Motor skills (gross and fine, thanks for the ideas) will be improved as well.

Sherri said...

Already get the emails and like them on facebook!! would love this game for our family. 5 kids from 18 down to 4 :)

Anonymous said...

My daughter has motor planning issues and this would be great. It be doing many things over and over and give her a great chance to have fun at the same time. We can play it as a family and her younger sisters can do something with her she would enjoy.

Anonymous said...

I also liked thier page on facebook

marnie said...

I love how simple this game is and that the creativity and variety it draws out of my kids! Doing the online sample over and over produced a different face each time.

godgazers(at)msn(dot)com

marnie said...

I already "like" Pick and Draw on facebook.

godgazers(at)msn(dot)com

Sippy Cup Central said...

It would be such a fun family game, thanks for offering it! Karen
Sippy Cup Central
sippycupcentral@gmail.com

Unknown said...

I have a LD/fine & gross motor/language skills kid and I think this would be a great game for her!!! She would love how simple it is and that there no competition with her twin! :)
Tiffany
mom to sprouts at yahoo dot com

Unknown said...

I liked them on FB!
Thanks for the introduction to the game!
Tiffany
momtosprouts at yahoo dot com

Concerned Mom said...

THis game would be great to use with my ADHD/Aspergers son. He loves to draw so this would be great to use to reinforce the relationship things we are talking about (i.e. personal space, how to interact, facial expressions. etc). Thanks for the review!

JS Legs said...

This sounds like a wonderful game for my family, with four young kids (one being autistic), it would be a great way to work on imitaion skills with the younger two and imagination and creativity with the older two. :)

jslegspoet at yahoo dot com

Shanna said...

Would love to win. My ds has been enjoying drawing pictures from Rich's blog. Would love the game!
shanna dot carlton at gmail dot com

Shanna said...

Like Pick N' Draw on FB.
shanna dot carlton at gmail dot com

Cookie Momster said...

Love this idea! The simplicity is the best, plus it's small and great for on the go. I'm thinking this would be great for restaurants while we wait for our food.

Cristi said...

I would definitely keep this in my "appointment" bag to use when we're spending too much time at the hospital.

Cristi said...

I liked Pick and Draw on FB. :)

Unknown said...

We have eight children, two of which have ds. One is newly adopted and non verbal at age 5. We'd love to have something that all ages can play together. Of course, with a family the size of ours, we're on a tight budget.
Thanks for considering us!

Jill

Unknown said...

We have eight children, two of whom have Down syndrome. One of them is a newly adopted five year old son who is non verbal. This woudl be a fun way to engage him and play together as a family. Thanks for considering us!

Anonymous said...

I would love to play this game with my five year old!

lauraswofford@yahoo.com

Anonymous said...

I like Pick and Draw on FB. :)

lauraswofford@yahoo.com

Bill and Sheri said...

We are adopting a little boy who has Down Syndrome, so I thought this game would be good for our family...during our time of bonding and always.

Bill and Sheri said...

We are adopting a little boy who has Down Syndrome and we thought this would be a good game for the family...especially during that bonding time

Bill and Sheri said...

We are also a fan of Pick and Draw on FB....missybrgr(at)msn(dot)com
Thanks

Jennifer said...

I would like to win it just for family fun.

Jennifer said...

I like them on FB.

terrydennis said...

I am an RDI consultant and grandmother of 4 boys. Penny your short list is very inclusive. I really like the way the game lends itself to sharing perspectives and gives players the opportunity to reference. I can also see it working with teens. Let Rich Davis know he has made a great game.

Paula said...

This sounds like a great game. My son likes to draw things like houses, but doesn't draw faces much so I think this would be a fun way to get him to think about faces and draw faces. My NT 4 year old would love it too. It's always nice to find an activity that everybody can play together.

momstumpf@hotmail.com said...

I just ordered these for my daughter, can't wait to get them in! I'd love to win a set to give to my autistic neighbor, didn't realize the value for them! momstumpf@hotmail.com

momstumpf@hotmail.com said...

I just liked on FB, hope I win! Momstumpf@hotmail.com

Blessed Momma said...

Please enter me, we have 8 children (15yr to 2yr w/#9 due in May) and this would be a great game for all of us to play. I have one that is PDD and sev I believe to be ADHD that are younger. Love the idea of the game!
becca95@centurytel.net

j* said...

Just wanted to say that I don't think we're ready for these cards yet but I love the idea of them and will keep it in mind...

Prince Andrew and the Queen Mum said...

woopsies..missed this one LOL

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