StoryLines

Remember the childhood party game called Broken Telephone? It starts with a person at the head of a chain of people being given a message and then passing it down the line. StoryLines is a mash-up of Broken Telephone and the missing word game, Mad Libs, that we can now enjoy with our children on the iPad or any computer with an internet connection.

Everyone can play this game because don't we all enjoy a chance at some childlike silliness, co-operative play and, above all, creativity? It's a simple game that even adults will find hilarious at a dinner parties when they see how a seed of an idea that starts the chain gets confused in each other's drawings and ends up being an entirely different caricature at the end.

The game starts with the person at the head of the line choosing a quote or a phrase, anything from Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star to My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean. Then it gets passed to the next person to illustrate, who then passes his drawing to the next person down the line to give the picture a caption. It keeps going down the line as folks take turns drawing or giving drawings a title.

Bear in mind that throughout the chain, the original quote is not shown until the game is over. When the last person has seen the drawing and gives the last title, the round is over and the laughter begins. The game displays the entire storyline starting from the original quote, and shows how the original word or phrase gets changed down the line.

StoryLines is a great family game that encourages family bonding because both adult and child can play at the same time. At our family dinner, the five- and seven-year-old joined in a storyline that started with 'Big Ben'. We all had a good laugh at a picture of the clock tower drawn by one of the adults transform into a drawing of a big boy called 'Ben' by the seven-year-old.

It is also an effective warm-up activity for the language classroom to get creative juices flowing for a writing activity. It can bring a team together to generate ideas for a storyline or a narrative with some imagination. And unlike other games and learning activities, everyone gets an opportunity to input into the storyline.