Picture Telephone is a visual version of the classic telephone game. Our Crew recently played this during the Communication section of the Introduction to Leadership Skills for Crews leadership training course.
The part our Crew enjoyed most about this game was looking at the pictures and phrases later and seeing how far off they were from the original message.
This game would be appropriate for any meeting where youth are learning communication skills.
Picture Telephone Game
- Pencils – One per participant
- Paper or index cards – Each participant will need as many pieces of paper as there are participants. So if you have seven participants you will need 49 (7×7) pieces of paper.
- The group should be seated in a circle. Each should have their stack of papers and a pencil.
- Instruct each participant to write a phrase on the top piece of paper. They should not tell anyone else what they have written.
- Each participant then passes their stack of papers to the person to their right. They look at the phrase on the top piece of paper and then move that sheet to the bottom on the stack.
- They should have a blank piece of paper on top now. They draw a picture which represents the phrase which was passed to them.
- Each participant passes the stack of papers to the right again. They look at the picture on the top piece of paper and move the sheet to the bottom of the stack.
- On the blank sheet now on top, they write a phrase which describes the picture which was passed to them.
- This continues, alternating phrases and pictures until the stacks of paper make their way all the way around the circle.
- At the end, each player stands up and shows each paper in their stack. This way everyone can see how the message changed as it was passed from one individual to another.