The holiday season is upon us! Are you looking for some activity ideas to complete with your students leading up to winter recess? Would you like to give them something to work on during the recess to keep their skills sharp? Pixton has some great options for all ages!

Benefits of Comic Books in the Classroom

We know students read at a higher level when they’re reading something familiar. We also know that students are more motivated when they are reading something of interest to them, rather than something required. Comic books or graphic novels are already in most homes in the United States, and they are great for building literacy skills, as per this Edutopia article. Reading comic books can actually help students to decode! Some of our younger readers may struggle with decoding, but thankfully, the use of images in comic books can help our students understand words and meaning in the text. We also can’t assume every student is coming to the classroom with the same prior knowledge. The images in comic books can help students comprehend the text if it’s not something they are familiar with in their own personal lives and experiences. Comics can help students understand concepts and themes in literature such as satire, symbolism, point of view, drama, and humor.

Some key benefits to using comics in your classroom include:

• Presents essential information
• Uses visual imagery to convey the meaning in a story or topic
• The sequential writing leads to greater understanding amongst students
• Can be an assessment/evaluation tool
• Helps with executive functioning skills like organizing; students are essentially storyboarding with comics.
• Engaging content
• Helps students hone the skills needed for writing dialogue

Now that we know some of the benefits of comics, let’s take a look at some classroom activities with Pixton that will help you implement comics in your classroom.

Create an Avatar to be like “Flat Stanley”

Task: Students will create an avatar in Pixton, print them, laminate them, and place them on a popsicle stick. Students will take them home during recess and can either take/draw pictures of the places they take their avatar to, or the activities they do with them. They will then use the comic book creator to show the story of what their avatar did over break.  

Story Retelling

Task: Ask students to read a book or two over the recess. Then, they can use the comic creator on Pixton to retell the story that takes place.

Storyboarding

Task: Since comic books are essentially more detailed storyboards, have students complete a writing assignment by using the comic creator in Pixton to map out the general flow of a story, as they will later write it in a traditional way. An idea for a story topic could be a reason why they missed school, for example, and this can be either fiction or nonfiction.

Spread Some Holiday Cheer

Task: Use the avatar creator, Pixton Printables, and the Comic Creator to create a holiday card! Students can use the student cards to write personalized messages and the Comic Creator to write their “Year in Review.”

Other things to consider

Even if you can’t fit some of these activities into your hectic planning this time of year, Pixton is a great tool all year long! Lesson ideas can be customized to any grade band, across any content area. There are so many possibilities with Pixton, like different themed classrooms that can even be fitted to Google Classroom banners. You can print out your class photos throughout the year for a variety of themes, hang them around the room, or post them to your Google Classroom. Pixton is even great for SEL activities – get creative and enjoy!  For more on Pixton, check out our course Enhancing Literacy with Pixton Comics.

For more tips, tricks, and tools for teaching in and out of the classroom, check out more content on the Teq Talk blog or our YouTube channels OTIS for educators and Tequipment.

We also offer virtual professional development, training, and support with OTIS for educators. Explore the technology and strategies that spark student success — no matter where teaching or learning are happening!

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