AI Skill: Text generation
The Scenario: Wet afternoon and nothing to do. AI writes a short comic strip script and your child draws the pictures.
What you need
- ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini (free versions all work fine)
- Paper folded or divided into panels, or a printed comic template
- Pens or pencils
- About 20 minutes
How to do it
- Decide how many panels (6 is a good starting point).
- Open the AI app and paste this prompt:
Write a short comic strip story for a [child’s age]-year-old, in [number] panels. The main character is [child’s name, or a character based on something they like — e.g. “a hamster who wants to be a footballer”] and the story should contain [something your child likes].
For each panel, give one sentence describing what’s happening in the picture, and one short line of dialogue or caption. Keep the words simple enough for a [child’s age]-year-old to read. Lead towards a joke or a twist at the end, but leave the final step in the story blank for the child to come up with their own ending.
- Read the panels together.
- Your child draws each panel based on the description – however they picture it, not how the AI describes it visually.
You can use our 8-part blank worksheet. - Add the captions (you write them for younger children; older children can write their own).
- Tape the panels together in order, or stick them on a wall.
Good to know
- The prompt only needs a first name or an interest, not anything more identifying.
- The AI describes what happens, not what it should look like – your child’s drawing is the actual art. Mismatches between the description and the drawing are part of the fun, not a problem to fix.
- If your child can’t write yet, you write the captions and they do the pictures.
Take it further
- Base it on something that actually happened – a school trip, a holiday, the day the dog escaped – instead of a made-up story.
- Turn it into a series: same character, new comic strip every few weeks.