I recently showed children ages 10-14 how to take visual notes. I had three 30-minute sessions and started each with a visual activity. For the last session I modified a tandem drawing activity I learned about on Instagram.

Lynda Barry is a cartoonist, teach, and author who leads students through a cartooning class at the University of Wisconsin. At her Instagram account, @thenearsightedmonkey, she shares a lot of techniques and experiences. One activity is tandem drawing, where two students draw together, one copying the other.

The Activity

For my activity, I created a set of simple drawings, one for each pair of students.

Once the students were randomized into pairs with pens and paper, I distributed a card to each pair with these instructions, “The leader on each team will draw, and the follower will copy their lines as they draw.” I had the students with birthdays closest to January be the leaders. Once they completed their drawings, after about 2 minutes, the roles switched, and I gave them new cards.

The Cards

I sketched the simple illustrations in Procreate and saved them as images. I then used a template in Pages to setup the cards. The template is designed for 9 cards in a 3×3 grid, and each card is formatted 2.5 x 3.5 inches.

After printing on cardstock, I laminated the sheet of cards, carefully cut them to the desired size, and finished them by rounding the corners.

Below is a video I created using a different card deck.

Printable Version

You can print these drawing cards and a wrap for the cards by clicking below. The 5-page PDF includes 2 pages for the cards (front and back), 2 pages for the wrapper (inside and outside), and a sheet of instructions for printing and cutting.

Look At My Notes