Skip to Main Content
The Drawing Game

The Drawing Game

Can art be a game? After reading The Drawing Game by ______, students enjoy the play of creating as they imagine possibilities when challenged to create a drawing from a single shape.

Lesson Plan

Supplies Needed

Gather all the supplies needed to bring your craft ideas to life! From paints and markers to glue and scissors, our crafts section has everything to spark creativity and make every project truly special.

  • Pencil(s)
  • White Paper

Steps

  • Step 1

    Gather the class around the reading rug. Ask if anyone has ever visited a museum. Have students share their museum experiences in small groups. Once the discussion appears exhausted, share The Shape Game by Anthony Browne as a read aloud.

  • Step 2

    Once the read aloud has concluded, ask students to describe the rules of the game and list on board (1. Draw a shape; 2. Trade; 3. Create something unexpected from the shape you received; and 4. Share what you made).

  • Step 3

    Inform students that they will be playing the shape game in class today and that you are challenging each one of them to be as creative as possible. Explain they will each be getting a white piece of paper, they will use a black marker to create a large, thick, unusual shape. Once drawn, students will trade this paper with a peer.

  • Step 4

    Once students receive the traded paper, they should put their names on the back. Provide them with a bit of class time to consider how to transform the drawn shape. Then provide each with a pencil for sketching.

  • Step 5

    Students outline pencil lines with Crayola Washable Marker and color inner spaces with Crayola Crayons. This produces a beautiful effect.

  • Step 6

    Art can be further enhanced for display by mounting onto a brightly colored construction paper background using Crayola Washable No-Run School Glue.

  • Step 7

    Encourage students to share with their peers, formally or informally, about their artwork. Have students share with students who created the shape what they thought it might become, and how the they saw something totally different in the shape. This could lead to a class discussion on various perspectives and viewpoints.

Standards

LA: Actively engage in group reading activities with purpose and understanding.

LA: With prompting and support, describe the relationship between illustrations and the story in which they appear (e.g., what moment in a story an illustration depicts).

LA: Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers.

MATH: Analyze and compare two-and three-dimensional shapes, in different sizes and orientations, using informal language to describetheir similarities, differences, parts (e.g., number of sides and vertices/“corners”) and other attributes (e.g., having sides of equal length).

VA: Engage collaboratively in creative art-making in response to an artistic problem.

VA: Create art that represents natural and constructed environments.

VA: Describe what an image represents.

Adaptations

This game could easily be adapted as approachable way to sculpture substituting modeling clay for the paper in the story.

Have students extend the experience by adding a third level to the "game" with a third payer. Embellish the piece with oil pastels, adding details & enhancements to surface. Possibly a fourth player could take the picture beyond the page and add to one side of the artwork. What does this story still need to tell?

Students do the same project digitally using the same same shapes. Have them describe how it is different when we make things with devices versus when we use our hands directly.