Pictionary

One of my favorite board games when growing up was Pictionary. Pictionary is a really fun game that involves drawing pictures and having your team members try to guess what you are trying to draw. It can be enjoyed by people of different ages so it is a great game for bringing families together. There is a board with various colored squares forming a track with a start and a finish. Players roll a dice to move across the board and the first player to reach the end of the track wins. The colored squares on the board correspond to colored categories on a set of ‘word cards’ that contain the words that players need to attempt to draw. While the colors and categories have changed a little over time, when I was a child they were as follows: yellow for ‘People, places or animals’, blue for ‘Objects’, brown for ‘Actions’, green for ‘Difficult’ and red for ‘All play’ (a special category in which all teams play at once). When the player throws the dice and moves that number of places on the board, they will land on a coloured square. They will then need to take a word card and attempt to draw the word in the category that corresponds to the colour of the square that they landed on. They are not allowed to speak, make gestures or write words. Their fellow team member(s) can make as many guesses as they want as they try to guess what is being drawn. The turn ends when they guess correctly or the timer runs out.

I used to love playing this game with my family so much! I remember that we would laugh so hard when one team would guess correctly despite the picture being absolutely dreadful. We would all laugh and say ‘how did you possibly get (the answer) out of that!!!!’. We would also become very frustrated (in a fun light-hearted way) when someone in the opposing team would guess correctly when the drawer had barely started drawing, or when one team would keep winning over and over again. I remember it being such a good feeling when someone would guess what I was drawing or when I correctly guessed my teammate’s picture.

One of the good things about Pictionary is that when it is one team’s turn, it is still fun for the opposing team as they can watch the other team draw and guess (silently) to themselves as they watch. Also, another great thing about Pictionary is that you don’t have to be good at drawing to be good at or enjoy this game. Ultimately the aim of the game is to have fun and often it is more fun when the pictures are not well drawn. So, if you are reading this and thinking to give this game a miss because you are not a good artist, please reconsider! Your poor artwork may be the very thing that makes this game a hit with your family and friends.

Belinda

Vocabulary

to guess (verb) ? to give an answer to a particular question when you do not have all the facts so you cannot be certain if you are correct
to correspond (verb) ? to match something, or be similar or equal to something
gesture (noun) ? a movement of part of the body, especially a hand or the head, to express an idea or meaning
ultimately (adverb) ? in the end; used to emphasize the most important fact in a situation
give something a miss (idiom) ? decide not to do or have something
to reconsider (verb) ? to think again about a decision or opinion and decide if you want to change it