Stay Storyboarding All Summer Long

You love all the art we have and you love the many ways you can create incredible images. You and your students all agree: making storyboards is really fun. You shouldn't have to put that fun to the wayside as school comes to a close and summer rolls around. There are tons of activities that students can do at the end of the school year and throughout the summer. And who knows, maybe you are teaching - or taking - summer classes! Below, you'll find some fun ways to incorporate Storyboard That into the classroom and beyond.

Ideas for Student Activities

Upcoming Summer Plans

Even though they're still in school, students are already excited about summer vacation once the clock ticks closer to May or June. Help connect them to digital literacy and writing practice by having them create a storyboard about what their summer will look like. What plans do they already have? What are some things they want to do? What would an ideal summer look like? Let students get as creative as they want!

Write a Letter to Next Year's Students

Even as this group of students leaves, you're already probably thinking about what the new students will bring to your classroom come the fall. You know that they may have apprehension or expectations of what their new year will bring. One great way to ease that apprehension and also connect different grade levels is to have your current students write letters to incoming students. Let them choose what to include in their storyboards, but it should center around the classroom, what to expect, and encouragement. You can print the finished comic strips and pass them out to your incoming class on the first day of school!

What Did You Learn This Year?

Creating a storyboard that shows off some of the things a student learned during the school year is a great way for a year-end review, and can also show you what students took out of your class! Students can choose to create infographics highlighting a few facts they remember, or create narrative storyboards to explain in more detail a lesson or unit.

How Did You Grow?

Students don't often think about the ways they grew through the school year, except maybe if they had a growth spurt. This is a great activity for students to reflect on how they changed from the beginning of the school year, mentally, emotionally, and socially. If you want to preface this at the beginning of the year, consider having students create a "Who Am I?" storyboard in September, and later comparing it with this new one. Students can create a poster or a storyboard with several cells that illustrates the different ways in which they grew and changed.

Serial Comic

Keep your students involved over the summer with a fun serial comic! Create a simple three-cell comic strip and send it out to your old or new students! If they are in your class on Storyboard That, they can comment on the comic. Comments might include predictions, new story ideas, questions about the characters, personal connections, and more! After a few weeks, have some of the students take over.

Complete the Story

Use a Story Starter to get students writing! Students can take the Story Starter and write text to go along with it, or they can copy the first cell and finish their own storyboard. Story Starters can be serious, silly, meaningful, fanciful, or whatever you want! Check out our Story Starters on Teachers Pay Teachers for some examples, or make your own!

Summer Reading Projects

Many teachers require summer reading; extend your summer reading books with storyboard activities. There are many lesson plans available, but even if we don’t have a lesson plan on the book your students are reading, you can still get ideas from similar books. We also have a few suggestions on how to make those book reports more engaging.

Book Reviews

Lots of kids like to share what they have read. Have your students create their own visual book review to share with one another. Provide students with a basic template to use with assigned reading books, or with any books they are reading.

Write a Story

Have students write a comic or story about a great experience they’ve had during the summer. If writing a real-life experience isn’t exciting enough, students can make up adventures with a fantasy character.

Ideas for Teacher Activities

I can’t draw. I’ve tried to learn, but my hand does not move the pencil in quite the right way. Even though my hands don’t have the master skills of an artist, my brain is still very creative. Storyboard That is very easy to use. The more you use it, the more skilled you will become at the image editing. Cropping and rotating are extremely powerful tools and greatly increase your abilities to create.

Classroom Posters

Not only are posters really great for decorating your class and making it more welcoming, they're also perfect for reviewing and reminding students of concepts that are important. With the help of our pre-made poster templates, you're able to customize the information you want to present to students.

Instructional Comics

Instructional comics are quite useful for introducing a topic, review, or targeted reteaching. The combination of instructions/information and visuals go a long way for student understanding. Get a head start on next year by making your own comics for explaining a process or concept.

Pretty Pictures

Create storyboards for your blog, classroom website, or for use during the school year. Storyboards might be used for a poster or decoration, as a slideshow, or as a reference sheet for students to hang on to.

Storyboard Templates

As you prepare for the new school year, create templates for printing or for future assignments on Storyboard That. If you're looking for a place to start, we've got you covered with a library of templates!. All of your storyboards will be right where you left them after some fun in the sun.

Just for Fun!

I make lots of storyboards. I love showing off my creations to friends, family, and anyone who will listen. That’s why I want you to have the same experience - the same joy and pride I feel when I show someone else what I have accomplished. There are amazing things you can do with Storyboard That, and I know you and your students will have fun with it.

Related Activities

Frequently Asked Questions about Summer Storyboard Activities

How can parents and teachers incorporate storyboarding into summer learning activities and what materials are needed for storyboarding?

Storyboarding can be incorporated into a variety of summer learning activities, such as writing projects, art projects, and multimedia projects. For example, children can create storyboards to plan out their own stories, poems, or scripts, or to visually represent key concepts in science or social studies. To create storyboards, children will need paper or a notebook, pencils, markers, or other drawing materials, and possibly access to a computer or tablet for digital storyboarding.

How can storyboarding activities be used to promote social-emotional learning?

Storyboarding can be used to support social-emotional learning by providing a creative outlet for self-expression, promoting collaboration and communication, and fostering empathy and perspective-taking.

How can parents and teachers use storyboarding to foster a love of reading and writing?

Parents and teachers can use storyboarding to foster a love of reading and writing by encouraging children to create visual representations of stories. By breaking down stories into key events and characters, children can better understand the narrative structure and sequence of events, and develop a deeper appreciation for the characters and themes. This can lead to increased engagement and interest in reading and writing. Storyboarding can also be used as a tool for teaching the elements of fiction, such as setting, character, plot, and theme. Parents can support their child's writing development at home by encouraging them to use storyboarding as a pre-writing strategy to plan and organize their ideas. Overall, storyboarding can be a fun and engaging way to foster a love of reading and writing while also developing important literacy skills.