The activity is called Quick Draw and for good reason! It is essentially Pictionary involving white boards and a great SILENT partner activity! You will need to create a powerpoint, where each slide has a category (such as nouns, adjectives, verbs, emotions, anything, etc) and four vocabulary words which relate to that category. Here are Lauren's directions:
- Students are in pairs, and each have a dry erase board with markers.
- Designate Partner A and Partner B.
- Each partner divides his/her dry erase board in quads with a marker. Number the quads 1-4
- For Round 1, Partner A faces the screen and Partner B turns their back to the screen. Project the PPT. I tell everyone the category for each round.
- Partner A looks at the list of words on the screen and draws a picture for each vocab. word. S/he draws picture 1 in quad 1, picture 2 in quad 2...etc.
- Partner B writes the vocabulary word which s/he thinks the picture represents in the appropriate quad.
- They can't talk or gesture or write words/numbers - ONLY pictures.
- The round ends with the first pair who successfully finishes all 4.
- Switch roles between partners for the next round
My variation: Instead of having the round end with the first pair who successfully finishes all 4, I gave 75-seconds for each round. This way, there was still a feeling of having to draw quickly but it gave the slow processors a chance. At the end of each round, I had teams simply tally their score, and they kept a running tally throughout the game,
- Students LOVED this activity and asked for more rounds (even though we had played 5 rounds!).
- The silent aspect of guessing the words makes it a lot more manageable and enjoyable for students. I have played regular Pictionary with students before, and it always gets really loud.
- Giving students a set amount of time helped lower the affective filter, because it was not a competition to finish first.
- I was surprised at how easily most students were able to write down the vocabulary words, based only upon a picture. This is more proof to me that when limiting vocabulary and targeting high frequency words, acquisition occurs more quickly and naturally.
- So many different modalities are addressed in this activity!
- The categories help students focus on which words will be used. I threw in an "anything" category (meaning it could be "any" vocabulary word) at the end, and although it made it more difficult, students still enjoyed it.
I will definitely add this activity to my arsenal (which means I will do it every 5-6 weeks in order to preserve the novelty). Thanks, Lauren, for yet another great activity!