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If You Have Kids, You’ve Probably
Heard of the Telephone Game!
My kids love to play telephone. They think it’s hysterical to say a word and whisper it in each other’s ear until the message gets back to the first person. We always giggle as something as simple as the words, “macaroni and cheese,” turn into something like the, “dog wants peas”. Now imagine a telephone in a board game with a drawing twist! Yes, you read that correctly, this is the game of telephone that lets you draw!

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Each Telestrations Game Includes:
- Instruction Sheet
- Sand Timer
- Over 1700 words to telestrate on the, This Side/That Side, sketch cards
- 8 Telestrations sketch books
- 8 Dry-erase markers
- 8 Soft Cloths
- 1 die

What I Liked About Telestrations
- It’s not your typical family game.
- There aren’t a ton of little pieces that can get lost.
- You really need to think about what you are drawing and guessing.
- The game is recommended for ages 12 and up, but we had a couple of younger kids playing as well. After a round of playing, though, even the younger kids got it and insisted we keep playing.
- The gameplay is actually quite simple:
- Everyone gets a sketchbook, you take a This or That card, which has words on it next to a die, you roll the die, and find the corresponding word to your number. Once you have your word you will write it on the first page and pass the books to your left.
- The next person looks at the word and draws their interpretation, again passing the books to their left.
- The next player will try to guess what you drew.
- This gameplay continues until you get the original sketchbook back. We played for a few hours and there were tons of giggles and silly guesses. When we played my favorite telestration was, “telescope”, and by the time the last person guessed, the guess was “cookie in the sky”.
I also checked out the USAopoly website and found some fun ideas to age the game down for younger people who wanted to play with their families. I love it when a game company goes out of its way to give you fun new ideas and ways to play a game with your whole family. Here are a few ideas:
- Ignore the guesses page and use sketches only.
- Prewrite some secret words that may be simpler for younger children, like dog, cat, boy, girl.
- Everyone gets a prize at the end like a piece of candy or an extra 5 minutes to stay up late, etc. It’s always good to reinforce laughter.

Would I Recommend the Telestrations Game?
I would recommend Telestrations for a family game night or a tween child’s sleepover party. We had so much fun with this game that we even included it in our Memorial Day barbecue. If you have a large group of people around, there is no reason not to play Telestrations. My daughter has requested that I go buy colorful dry-erase markers so that she can play this with her friends at all their sleepovers this summer.
