Skip to main content

Volunteering at Scouts is changing to help us reach more young people

Volunteering is changing to help us reach more young people

Volunteering is changing at Scouts. Read more

Discover what this means

Top troop face off

Get to know more about your friends with a fun drawing challenge.
Plan a session with this activity

Back to Activities

You’ll need

  • Coloured pens or pencils
  • A4 paper
  • Clipboards

Get ready to draw

  1. The person leading the game should give each person a piece of paper and a pen or pencil.
  1. Everyone should write their name at the top of their piece of paper.

Draw it out

  1. Everyone should get into pairs. They’ll get into lots of different pairs throughout the activity, so it doesn’t matter too much.
  2. The people in each pair should swap pieces of paper. They should draw just the outline of their partner’s face on their piece of paper, then give the paper back.
  3. Everyone should get into a new pair, swap paper, and draw the person’s eyes.
  4. Everyone should keep getting into new pairs swapping paper, and drawing one feature until each picture has at least a mouth, nose, ears, and hair.
  5. Now it’s time to find out some facts. Everyone should get into a new pair. The person leading the activity should call out a question, and everyone should write down their partner’s answer near the edge of their picture.
  6. Everyone should get into new pairs, and the person leading the activity should keep calling out new questions, until everyone has a few answers written down.

Share your pictures

  1. Everyone should get into a circle.
  2. Everyone should hold up the portrait of them.
  3. Everyone should take it in turns to talk through the portrait of the person to their right and introduce them to the group.

Reflection

This activity was all about building friendships. Did people find it interesting to see themselves through someone else’s eyes? Getting to know other people better is a great way to strengthen a friendship. What was the most interesting thing people found out?

This activity also needed everyone to communicate well. How did people find new partners each time? Did people find it easy to come up with answers to all of the questions and share them?

Safety

All activities must be safely managed. You must complete a thorough risk assessment and take appropriate steps to reduce risk. Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Always get approval for the activity, and have suitable supervision and an InTouch process.

It’s up to you which features you ask people to draw and which questions you ask. For an extra challenge, cover up the names on all of the finished portraits and put them in the middle of your meeting space. Can everyone figure out whose is whose?

You don’t have to draw – you could use portrait software of phone apps too. You could also make a collage with pictures.

Be sensitive to any issues before asking personal questions. If you know someone has difficulties at school, for example, it might be best not to ask about school.

Don’t worry too much about the drawing – it doesn’t have to be gallery worthy! It doesn’t matter about spelling, either. People can ask their partners for help with writing if they need to.

All Scout activities should be inclusive and accessible.

Scouts Membership Award

If this activity particularly inspired anyone, they may want to look into the Scouts Artist Activity Badge! If it was popular, try and plan to do more drawing activities in the future.

People can come up with their own list of features – they may want to focus on a really detailed face, or add a body (and some clothes). They could also come up with their own questions.