Cartoon Workshops at Kāwhia, Hauturu and Ngutunui Primary Schools

This is an Otorohonga council website story

Through Creative Communities, Otorohanga District Council was proud to support a recent series of cartoon workshops at Kawhia, Hauturu and Ngutunui Primary Schools, where imagination ran wild and creativity took centre stage.

The workshops were designed to help tamariki explore storytelling through drawing, dialogue, and visual humour. Initiated and led by a talented Anna Crichton, the sessions began with warm-up cartoons created live on the whiteboard—based entirely on the bold and brilliant ideas shouted out by the students. These quick-fire scenes introduced students to the concept of “no holds barred” cartoon thinking, and from there, they were off and running with their own stories.

In one wildly inventive group cartoon, a bored pear teamed up with an anxious apple to defeat a hungry possum, eventually turning it into a piñata filled with lollies and candy canes. Another saw a triangle and a circle go fishing—catching a shark and a mermaid respectively. What began as a dramatic standoff turned into a heartwarming moment of compassion, with the shark safely towing their boat back to shore beneath a radiant Maori sun.

With long paper panels to fill, students then worked individually to develop their own cartoon narratives—combining drawing, writing, and spelling in a way that was both educational and heaps of fun.

We’re thrilled to have helped make this happen, and we extend our thanks to the school and facilitator for creating such an engaging and energetic environment for creative learning.

See more photos on our social media. Read more about the funding here: https://shorturl.at/SO41F