12 drawing games to play with your preschooler

Many parents say the same thing: "I'd love to draw with my child, but I can't draw." Good news: you don't need to. In these games your job is to set things up, ask questions and laugh at the results. Your child does the drawing, and you can join in with stick figures.

All you need is paper, a few crayons and ten minutes. Phones away, yours included.

Before you start: a parent's guide in four lines

• Your child is the boss of the drawing. You set up the game; they decide what goes on the page.
• Describe, don't judge. "You made his legs really long!" beats "That's perfect."
• Silly is good. The funnier the result, the more they'll want to play again.
• Stop while it's still fun. Ten happy minutes are better than forty tired ones.

Games where you start and they finish

1. Finish my squiggle

Draw a random squiggle, loop or zigzag. Your child turns it into something: a snail, a dragon, a bowl of noodles. Then swap, and they draw a squiggle for you.

2. Dot surprise

Put five to ten dots anywhere on the page. Your child joins them up however they like, then decides what it turned into.

3. Half and half

Draw one half of a face, an animal or a butterfly, and ask your child to draw the other half. It doesn't need to match. Lopsided is funnier.

Games with words

4. Draw what I say

Describe something one piece at a time while your child draws: "It has a big round body… four short legs… a very long nose… and it's purple." Then guess together what it is. Swap roles and let your child describe while you draw.

5. Story strip

Fold a page into four boxes. Start a story out loud ("Once upon a time, a little cloud got lost…") and your child draws each part. Now you have a comic.

6. Guess what I'm drawing

Draw something very slowly, one line at a time, while your child guesses. Then let them draw something for you to guess. Getting it wrong on purpose is allowed.

Games with a bit of magic

7. The fold-over monster

Fold a sheet into three. One person draws a head at the top and folds it over, the next draws a body without looking, and the last draws legs. Unfold it for a very surprising monster.

8. Hand animals

Trace around your child's hand, and let them trace yours. Turn the shapes into animals: an octopus, a peacock, a hedgehog, a crab.

9. Eyes-closed portraits

Draw each other with your eyes closed. Nobody can do it well, which is exactly why it's so much fun.

10. Shadow tracing

On a sunny day, stand a few toys on a big sheet of paper and trace around their shadows. Then colour them in together.

Games that go somewhere

11. Treasure map

Hide a small toy and draw a simple map of the room with an X. Then it's your child's turn to hide something and draw the map for you.

12. Build a world together

Roll out a big sheet of paper and make a place together: you draw a road or a river, your child adds houses, animals and people. Come back to it over a few days. We wrote a whole guide on helping your child build a world of their own.

What your child gets from it

• Your full attention. For a preschooler, a grown-up who is really there is the best reward of all.
• Words and stories. Describing, guessing and storytelling build language.
• Taking turns. Waiting, swapping and sharing a page are real social skills.
• Imagination. Every one of these games starts with "what if…?"

And you get a folder of very funny drawings to look back on. For more starting points, try our 30 easy drawing ideas.

Play together in Mookmik World

When a drawing from one of these games is finished, you can bring it to life together in Mookmik World. Take the photo side by side, let your child choose the name, and record its voice together: the sillier, the better. Then watch your fold-over monster or squiggle-snail play in a painted world, and head back to the table to draw it a friend.