Harold Comes to West Room: Adventures in Drawing and Storytelling

By Nandini Bhattacharjya, Head Teacher, and Betsy Koning, Teacher

“But, luckily, he kept his wits and his purple crayon. He made a balloon and he grabbed on to it. And he made a basket under the balloon big enough to stand in.”—Crockett Johnson, Harold and the Purple Crayon

After winter quarter began, teachers in West AM soon realized that many children were hesitant to try to represent their ideas on paper. We heard children saying things like, “Can you help me draw a picture?” “I want to draw a cat, but I don’t know how,” or “I am not a good drawer.”

At first, we talked with children about how they could combine lines and simple geometric shapes to represent objects they wanted to draw. For example, a cat could be broken down into the components of a circle for a head, triangles for ears, a rectangle for a body and lines for legs and a tail. However, even though we encouraged the children and supported them to find ways to express their thoughts on paper, we saw reluctance to try to create even simple drawings and frustration with the drawing process and the results of their efforts. As teachers, we knew we had to find a way to make the children feel more confident and willing to build on their drawing skills.

After some brainstorming, we decided to read the story Harold and the Purple Crayon, the tale of a young boy who uses a purple crayon to illustrate his imaginary adventures, to see if this character and his simple drawings could inspire the children to find ways to record their ideas and stories on paper. This led us to embark on a journey into the world of Harold through the series of books about Harold written by Crockett Johnson. The teachers set up a table with all of the Harold stories, a few Harold cut-outs, some purple crayons and paper. Every week at story time, we read a story from the series, which seemed to give children an opportunity to see how lines and simple shapes can turn into castles, fairies, hot-air balloons and more. As we continued to work on this project, we saw more confidence among children, while they, with purple crayon in hand, attempted to represent their ideas at the language table. Furthermore, we saw growing interest among the children in regard to this series of books. Many children spontaneously asked us to read several Harold stories in one sitting. Some picked up one of the books and flipped through the pages independently. Others drew a picture with a purple crayon and told us an adventure of their own.

Each Harold story inspired a different type of response from the children. The original story led children to try to visually represent the author’s ideas in their own ways. As Arnold drew shapes on a piece of paper, he asked the teacher to label them as Harold’s bed and window, the moon and the policeman who shows Harold which way to go. Others wanted to add to Harold’s adventure, picking up where Johnson left off. For example, Pieter drew a building and a group of people and said, “Harold went to the Exploratorium and saw Mike, Sarah, Cece, Pieter, Elena and Maggie” (all of Pieter’s family members and their neighbor’s dog). Upon reading Harold’s Trip to the Sky, it was interesting to hear what the children thought Harold could see happening on Earth from his perspective on the moon. In Elena’s story, Harold saw “Emilia, Cate and me playing in Bing School.” Caroline had thoughts about how Harold’s family would feel about his journey: “His mom and dad were proud of him for taking the trip to the moon in a rocket ship.” The Harold story about a fairy tale and another about dinosaurs generated drawings from children who were interested in these themes.

We were pleased to see children starting to show an eagerness to draw and to expand on the original stories by adding their own ideas. A group of children’s interest in books on sea life led to the creation of a collaborative story on “Harold Under the Sea.” One morning a child was showing friends and teachers a detailed drawing of coral she had made. This inspired another child to want to create a drawing of “huge coral.” As he looked at a large blank piece of paper, he said, “We should make lots of underwater creatures to go with it!” The first child, who was nearby, heard his comment and agreed by saying, “Yes, we could make an under-the-sea adventure for Harold, so he could explore the ocean!” They both set about drawing deep water with a sandy bottom and murky spots for animals who prefer the dark. They wanted to know what sorts of creatures lived in different depths of water, and the teachers provided them with some informational books on the topic. They paged through the books, finding creatures they wanted to include and asking the teachers what they were called.

As these two children drew, other children became interested and asked if they could help, to which the answer was a resounding “Yes!” The drawing grew to cover six pieces of easel paper taped together, and the first child sought out more children to contribute. As more children added to the drawing, the theme expanded to include boats and submarines, divers in wetsuits, mermaids and treasure chests. Some children wanted a teacher to label their additions to the work so that others (including Harold) might learn new information while exploring the drawing. The teachers then laminated the drawing and made it available in the block area with small Harold figures so that the children might continue to play out their ideas on this topic. It was remarkable to see how Harold had inspired them to draw and collaborate.

At story time, teachers told the Harold stories by drawing them on an easel. Of course, some of our representations were not as skillful as the original book’s illustrations. However, when the children pointed that out to us, we acknowledged their thoughts and let them know we were doing our best. This kind of modeling really helped the children feel more confident to explore their skills and attempt to draw in order to represent their ideas. Natalie painted a shooting star in the art area and let the teacher use it to help narrate the story of the trip to the sky.

We had been reading the book Harold’s ABC, and one morning a child came to school, saw a purple crayon on the design table and said, “I can draw Harold’s house.” He drew the house and then proceeded to make specific rooms within it. He described the house: “It has an attic and you have a ladder to go up to the attic. This is Harold’s bed. He needs a window in his room. Now, also a moon because he likes to see the moon. This is his shower. This is where he eats his oatmeal. It’s hot. He sits on a chair. This is the door he can go outside. He has lots of grass and there’s a snake in his garden” (he added a purple pipe cleaner to make the snake). The teacher offered the child a printed letter Y from the alphabet story to help represent the word “yard,” and he cut out the letter and added it to his drawing. He added balloons to the yard by punching some circles out of purple construction paper, attaching them to popsicle sticks and placing them around the house. At this point his friend came in. The child proudly showed him his design for Harold’s house, then said, “We can make his house.” They went out together with the design and used the hollow blocks to build the structure:

First boy: We need four walls.
Second boy: And a roof.
First boy: Lots of food. He is hungry.

They gathered food from the outside dramatic play area and built their house. As they played in it, we heard them say, “We are both Harolds! There can be two Harolds!”

At the end of our seven-week adventure with Harold, we found that the children were feeling much more confident in representing their ideas with simple lines and shapes like Harold had in the stories. We also saw some children who hadn’t been interested in drawing begin to try illustrating their ideas. Several of the children started telling—and then drawing—original stories about their own adventures. Parents let us know how their children could “read” the Harold books by describing what they saw in the books’ illustrations, and that the children were choosing Harold books for their bedtime stories at home. Children also wanted to search for more Harold stories with their parents at libraries and bookstores. As teachers, we were thrilled to see that Harold had empowered our children and given them the tools to represent their ideas in an accessible way. Harold and the Purple Crayon will forever hold a special place in the hearts of the West AM teachers.