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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

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Create gardening comic strips

Look after your plant, watch it grow, and turn its adventure into a comic strip. It’s plant-tastic.
Plan a session with this activity

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You’ll need

  • A4 paper
  • Coloured pens or pencils
  • Pens or pencils
  • Plants
  • Camera (optional)

Before you begin

  • This activity works best spread over several sessions. You’ll need some time to explain the activity and set up your comic, then you’ll need to save a bit of time to add a panel each time you meet.
  • You’ll need plants that you’ve taken care of for this activity. If you haven’t planted anything yet, why not check out Grow a green caterpillar
  • Think about how you’ll keep the plants safe between sessions. Do you have somewhere to keep them? Should people take them home? If their plants are at home, would it work better for people to add panels to their comic between sessions?
  • Decide how often you’ll revisit your plants to add a panel to your comic. We’ve suggested weekly, but it’ll depend on what you planted and how fast it grows.

Story time

  1. Everyone should sit in a circle.
  2. Someone should read Maxine's Magical Comic by Jess Connett. Make sure you save a copy before the session.
  3. After reading the story, everyone should take some time to reflect on it as a group. We’ve included some questions to help you reflect in the pink box below.

Maxine was lying on her bed, chewing a pencil. Spread out in front of her was the latest comic that she had started to draw.

Spud and Nach, her favourite characters, were standing on the edge of a cliff, wearing the wings they had made. Would they be brave enough to try to fly?

The next panel of the comic was empty. Maxine wasn’t sure what to draw next. She was feeling very tired. Slowly, her eyes began to close.

Through the window, a magic wind blew the pages of the comic closed, and then open again. When they opened, Spud and Nach were no longer stuck in the little boxes of the comic. They were standing on the paper, looking amazed.

“We’re real!” said Nach, looking down at her awesome superhero outfit. She flapped her arms and the homemade wings lifted her a little way off the page. One of the feathers flapped close to Maxine and tickled her nose as she slept.

Maxine’s nose twitched. She shuddered. She was still. And then – “ACHOOO!”

Her sneeze was so huge that it woke her up, and it blew Nach and Spud right off the bed and down onto the floor, far, far below.

The comic book characters jumped out of the way as Maxine’s giant foot came stomping down on the floor. A voice was calling her from downstairs. They hid in the folds of the blanket as she left her bedroom.

“Quick! We have to get back into the comic book before Maxine finds out we’re gone!” Nach said. “Come on Spud, you can do it.”

Spud cautiously flapped his wings. “I can’t do it, Nach,” he said. “I’m too little.”

“Of course you can! You’re a superhero,” said Nach. “You’ve just got to believe in yourself. Let’s try together.”

They held onto each other as they both flapped their wings and started to rise. Another magic wind swept them back onto the bed and into the pages of the comic.

It was just in time. Maxine came back in, flopping down onto her bed.

She opened her comic. There were her characters, standing on the edge of the cliff, ready to fly. Maxine looked a bit closer at her drawing. Hang on – had they always been holding hands?

By Jess Connett


Make your comic

  1. Everyone should look at their plants and chat about what they need to grow.
  1. The person leading the activity should give everyone a piece of paper. Everyone should put the paper horizontally in front of them and fold it from top to bottom. They should unfold their paper and fold it from left to right twice. This will create boxes (called panels) for people to fill.
  1. Everyone should fill the first panel with a drawing or photo of their plant – is it big or small? What colour is it? Can they see any shoots, leaves, or flowers yet?
  2. Everyone should add some words (or drawings) that explain what their plant smells or feels like.
  1. Everyone should fill the second panel of their comic with everything their plant will need to grow. Will it be watered by the rain, or will they water it with a watering can? Will it be near a window or in the great outdoors?
  2. Everyone should take care of their plant and wait for it to grow.
  3. After a week or so, everyone should repeat steps three and four to fill the third panel of their comic. What does their plant look, feel, and smell like now? Maybe it has a wiggly stem or soft leaves. It might smell of nothing, or it could smell really fresh.
  4. Everyone should keep looking after their plant. They should check in on it weekly to add another panel to their comic until it’s full. Does it show how their plant has grown and changed?

Reflection

This activity gave everyone the chance to value the outdoors as they learned more about what plants need to grow and stay healthy. They also practised communicating what they could see, feel, and smell in different ways.

Maxine's Magical Comic

  • Who is your favourite character from a comic or story?
  • When was the last time someone helped you do something tricky?

Make your comic

  • What did the plants need to grow and stay healthy? Did anyone notice how their actions helped (or hurt) their plant?
  • Was it easy to show how the plants grew in a comic? Maybe it was tricky to draw accurately or useful to ask a grown up to help with some labelling.

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 how much detail you want to add. You could use photos, encourage everyone to draw accurately, or take it more abstract and focus on colours and shapes.
  • Support everyone to create their own comic. Some people might need some help with spelling or writing, while others will need some encouragement to give the folding a go.

People could use a computer to make their comic if that works better for them.

All Scout activities should be inclusive and accessible.

Squirrels Let It Grow Activity Badge

Why stop at a comic? You could work together to tell a story of how your plants have grown or create models of them each week, for example. How could you share your creations more widely? Perhaps you could display them in your meeting place or invite parents and carers to come and take a look.

Everyone should feel free to express themselves in a way that makes sense to them. Some people might focus on really accurate drawings, while others might want to use bold colours and shapes to show their plant’s growth. Encourage people to chat about what their pictures show.