Materials

• Paper or Garden Comic Template
• Writing and Drawing Materials
• Ruler (optional)

Background Information

Comics are a great storytelling exercise for kids because they enable them to organize a storyline sequentially and convey the story through a combination of visual art and words. When we offer kids the chance to share their understanding of gardening, ecology, nutrition, or history concepts by creating a “garden superhero” comic, they have the opportunity to celebrate and center garden education topics in a creative way that sticks with them.

Instructions

Introduce the idea that kids will be creating their own comic about a “garden superhero” of their choice. Examples include:

• A plant that does something amazing, like producing a delicious and nutritious food or supporting the health of a neighboring plant
• A creature, like a pollinator or decomposer, that helps the garden thrive
• Themselves or someone else who works hard to care for a garden
• A historical figure who accomplished something amazing in the field of botany, agriculture, or conservation
• The farm workers who grow our food

Let them brainstorm their idea and create their comic using either the template included here or with a custom one they make themselves. You can show them the winner of our 2025 Kids Garden Month Garden Comic Challenge (included below), Worm Dude by Isaac J., about a brave earthworm, for inspiration! Share the steps and open-ended questions below to help them get started.

1. Plan Your Story: Think about your garden superhero and their story:
   1. Who or what are they?
   2. Where and when is the setting of your story?
   3. What will you show your garden superhero doing in your story?
   4. Are there other characters featured as well?
   5. How many frames will it take to tell your story?
   6. What will you show in each frame to get the story across to your reader?

2. Prepare Your Comic Frames: Use the included 5-frame template for your comic, or use a ruler to create a grid with as many frames as needed for your custom comic.

3. Write Captions: Text captions can be included at the top or bottom of frames to set the stage for readers and give them information about characters or scenes.

4. Draw Your Characters: Draw your superhero and any supporting characters in each frame, showing the actions that they’re performing in the story.

5. Add Dialogue, Thoughts, and Sounds: Write what your characters say out loud inside speech bubbles pointed at the speaker’s mouth. Share what they’re thinking to themselves inside thought bubbles shaped like clouds, and add any sound effects occurring in the frame as onomatopoeic words inside exciting shapes like starbursts.

6. Create the Setting: Now that your characters, dialogue, and sounds have been added, draw setting details around them. Where are they and what is around them?

7. Share Your Comic: Add a title and your author byline, then show your garden superhero comic strip to friends, family, or classmates!