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Watch: Creating a comic strip

Watch this short clip to revise what to include in a comic strip.

Revise what to include in a comic strip.

An illustration of a young girl drawing at a desk.

Let's recap

  • Comic strips tell entertaining stories using pictures and words.

  • Planning is important. You need to know your whole story from start to finish before you start drawing.

  • The pictures in comic strips go in panels. You can use lots of different types of pictures, such as close ups, long shots or even a bird’s eye view.

  • Readers look at each panel (from left to right) in order to put the story together.

  • Words are important to show what characters are thinking, or to set the scene.

    • Captions explain where or when a part of the story takes place.
    • Speech bubbles show what the characters say out loud.
    • Thought bubbles show what the characters are thinking.
An illustration of a young girl drawing at a desk.
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Watch: What is onomatopoeia?

An illustration of a young boy pointing to the words bang, pow and splash.

Onomatopoeia is when a word sounds like the noise it is describing. Comics often use onomatopoeia to show sound effects.

For example: Pow! Bang! Boom!

Watch this short clip to revise onomatopoeia and see some more examples.

An illustration of a young boy pointing to the words bang, pow and splash.

Revise onomatopoeia.

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Activity 1

Before you start planning your own, see if you can remember the different parts of a comic strip.

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Activity 2

How much do you know about comic strips?

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Activity 3

You will be creating a comic strip to show what happened when Christopher Columbus set out to explore the world.

Watch the following clip to learn more about his journey.

Find out more about Christopher Columbus.

Now complete this sorting activity. You need to show the correct order in which the events happened.

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Activity 4

An illustration of a young girl smiling with question marks around her.

Now you need to plan your comic strip to make sure that the pictures flow and it makes sense.

Divide a piece of plain paper into eight boxes and plan your story. Write notes in each box to say what you are going to draw and write in each panel.

Plan to include at least four onomatopoeia words in your comic strip. For example: Splash! Clink! Pop! Flap!

An illustration of a young girl smiling with question marks around her.
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Activity 5

An illustration of a young girl thinking.

Now it’s time to draw out your comic strip!

Divide a piece of plain paper into eight boxes.

Your panels can be different shapes and sizes, but there must be eight of them to match your plan.

Remember to include:

  • Four onomatopoeia words

  • Captions to say where or when a part of the story is taking place

  • Speech and thought bubbles

An illustration of a young girl thinking.
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Play our fun English game Crystal Explorers. game

Use grammar, punctuation and spelling skills to explore jungles, caves and tombs on your mission!

Play our fun English game Crystal Explorers
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