Pictionary is the rare classroom game that makes a child produce a word rather than recognise it. The guessing team has to say volcano out loud, on purpose, in front of their friends, and the drawer has to know it well enough to draw it. That is why it has been on supply-teacher lists since the 1980s. Here are six formats we have seen work, with the kids generator settings for each.
1. Vocabulary review (15 minutes)
Set the Category to the unit you are reviewing (Animals for a habitats topic, Food for nutrition, Vehicles for a transport unit), the Audience to Kids and the Difficulty to Easy for younger classes or Medium for older ones. Two teams, one drawer at the board at a time, 45-second timer. The guessing team must use the word in a sentence to score. Press Copy list at the end for the words you covered.
2. Verbs and tenses (20 minutes)
The Actions & Verbs category is a verbs lesson in disguise. The drawer draws the action; the guessers must name it in the tense you call out (“past tense!”). Stick figures with motion lines are legal and hilarious. Older classes can handle the hard tier (procrastinate, negotiate, eavesdrop).
3. Feelings and circle time (10 minutes)
The Emotions & Feelings category with the Kids audience and Easy tier gives you proud, nervous, grumpy, homesick. Draw the face, guess the feeling, then ask the class when they last felt it. It is a gentler way into naming emotions than a worksheet, and a good one for a first week.
4. Geography (20 minutes)
Places has an easy tier of everyday places and a hard tier of landmarks (Eiffel Tower, Great Wall of China, Niagara Falls). Drawers may only draw the outline, never a flag or a letter; guessers must also say the country. Put a world map on the wall and let the guesser point.
5. ESL and EFL (25 minutes)
Stay in the Easy tier, pick one category per lesson, and require full sentences from the guessers: “It is a giraffe. It has a long neck.” Let learners draw in pairs so the anxious ones are never alone at the board. The word lists are a ready-made picture vocabulary for the follow-up, and the printable cards make a homework set.
6. The Friday reward (10 minutes)
Audience Kids, Funny words only on, no scoring. Sneezing fit, bedhead, the dog ate my homework. The point is the laughing; the drawing goes on the wall.
Practical notes
- Projector: press Fullscreen and the word fills the screen with the timer. For whole-class play, have the guessing team face the drawer and the board, not the screen, or use Hide the word until tapped and a second device for the drawer.
- Tables: one tablet per table with hidden reveal on runs four games at once.
- No screen: print a category from the printable page and draw cards from a box.
- Safety: the Kids audience removes every grown-up reference; there is no rude list anywhere on the site.
- Rules: no letters or numbers is the rule to keep strictly; relaxing “no nodding” for younger children is fine. The rules page has the full list.
Last updated September 2026.