Zig
POINTS AND ZIGZAGS
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Zig is a sharp, sparky, zigzaggy drawing friend, all corners and points, who can never quite keep still. Zig draws points and zigzags, up and down, up and down, like a little bolt of lightning.
"My house looks like a box," says Mo sadly. "It doesn't look like a house."
Zig zips over. "What's missing?" asks Zig.
Mo thinks. "A roof?"
"A roof!" says Zig, bouncing. "A roof is a point. Go up... and come down. Like a mountain."
Mo draws a line going up from one corner of the box, and down to the other. A pointy roof. And suddenly the box is a house.
"Points are everywhere," says Zig, zigging and zagging. "A point on top of a head makes a cat's ear. A little point on a face makes a beak. A point at the end of a fish makes its tail. Up and down, that's all."
Mo draws a cat next to the house. Two pointy ears. She grins.
"Now here's my favourite trick," says Zig, lowering its voice like a secret. "What happens if you draw a point, and then another point, and then another, and another, without stopping?"
Mo tries it along the bottom of the page. Up, down, up, down, up, down.
"A zigzag!" she says.
"A zigzag," says Zig proudly. "It's the same point, again and again. When something repeats like that, it's called a pattern. Patterns can make a fence, or grass, or a crown, or the edge of a whole picture, like a frame."
So Mo draws a zigzag all the way round the edge of her picture: along the top, down the side, along the bottom and up again. The house and the cat sit inside it, like a painting in a fancy frame.
That is Zig's sparky idea.
A point makes ears, roofs and tails. A point that repeats makes a zigzag pattern.
Try it with a grown-up! Take turns adding to one zigzag, one point each, across a long piece of paper. Can you keep the pattern going all the way? Then try a new pattern: two big points, one small point, two big, one small.
When the frame is finished, Zig finally sits still, just for a moment, and looks at it. "Up and down, again and again," Zig says quietly. "Calm and steady. I like a pattern."
Up, down, again. That's Zig.
Hear it as an audio drama
A short play starring Zig, from DoodlePals. Different voices, same idea. Listen any time after you read.
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Read the drama script
- Narrator: From Spark and Anvil and DoodlePals — this is Zig, in chapter 1 of the DoodlePals cast.
- Narrator: This drama uses an AI-generated voice. Voiced via Gemini 2.5.
- Narrator: Femi is drawing a dragon. She has a long body and a big head. But something is missing.
- Femi: It doesn't look like a dragon. It looks like a sausage with a face.
- Zig: It needs points! A point goes up, then down. Like this.
- Narrator: Zig draws one point. Up, and down. Like the top of a little mountain.
- Zig: One point can be an ear. Or a roof. Or the tip of a tail.
- Femi: So I put a point on the end of the tail.
- Narrator: Up, and down. Now the dragon has a pointy tail.
- Zig: Now watch what happens when I draw the same point again, and again, and again.
- Narrator: Up, down. Up, down. Up, down, up, down.
- Femi: A zigzag!
- Zig: A zigzag is just a point that repeats. Draw it all along the dragon's back.
- Narrator: Femi draws a zigzag of spikes from the dragon's head to its tail. Up, down, up, down, all the way along.
- Femi: Now it's a dragon! And I can give it zigzag teeth, and zigzag fire!
- Zig: Points and zigzags, everywhere you look.
- Narrator: A point makes an ear, a roof or a tail. And a zigzag is a point that repeats. Next time you draw, try a row of points, and see what it turns into.
- Narrator: You've been listening to a Spark and Anvil chapter, written by the Spark and Anvil writing team for ages 9 to 14.
- Narrator: Spark and Anvil is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) pending. Apps stay free forever.
- Narrator: Curriculum aligned to Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards.
- Narrator: Released under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 for educational reuse. Visit Spark and Anvil for the full transcript.
Reading together with a grown-up? A card for the grown-up
For the grown-up: ask one question, then wait. When they answer, add one word to what they said. Tap the button when they have said something — that is one turn each, a circle. Nothing is recorded or kept.
Let them finish it
Say “Zig says: a POINT makes an ear, a roof or a tail - …” and stop. Let them finish it.
Now wait. Count slowly to five in your head. Their answer is worth the quiet.
Circles together: 0
The DoodlePals ensemble
Zig is one of the friends in DoodlePals. Each friend shows you one idea by how they act; meet them all and you have the whole subject.
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Scribble
Wobble first - Scribble, who draws wobbly lines on purpose: every drawer's lines wobble, so a wobbly line is not a mistake but how drawing looks - keep going
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Ovo
The oval inside - Ovo, who draws ovals and circles and finds them hiding inside things: heads, bodies, eggs and wheels all start as ovals
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Boxy
One shape at a time - Boxy, who builds big pictures from boxes and long lines, adding one shape at a time, so you never draw it all at once
