28 World Book Day Ideas for School

As World Book Day circles around once more, the panic for World Book Day Ideas begins to set in. In this blog we bring you 28 different activities to try in your setting from creative art and crafts, to writing activities and even cooking and baking inspiration. Read on for more!

28 World Book Day Ideas You Need to Try Out

Expressive Art & Design

1. The Very hungry caterpillar headband

What is World Book Day without a spot of dressing up? The hungry caterpillar headband is a simple craft that children can create to celebrate the Hungry Caterpillar story. Wear it just as it is or as part of a fully crafted costume!

2. Milk Bottle Elmer

This is another fun craft idea for children to celebrate their favourite tale. This craft makes use of old milk bottles which can be used to prompt discussions around recycling and looking after the planet

3. Design a Book Cover

Designing a book cover sounds like a fun craft idea but besides this it encourages children to think about elements of the book they have just read or listened to and incorporate them in the design of the cover to convey the story.

4. Design your own bookmark

Finally, why not get crafty with your own book marks? These could be any style – why not try a little monster eating the corner of your page!

Physical Development

5. Rapunzel cutting practice

For this you will just need a tuff tray, some paint pens, cooked spaghetti and scissors. Use the paint pens to draw Rapunzel’s tower directly onto the tuff tray and all the cooked spaghetti as hair tumbling from the window of the tower.

Children can follow along with the story of Rapunzel and cut the spaghetti hair when the witch does.
This acts as a fun and memorable way to participate in storytelling but also allows children to practice their fine motor skills as they cut through the spaghetti hair

6. Create a themed reading zone

Nothing is more immersive for a storytime than a cosy reading nook. A reading den can be made to suit any size or space and will present children with the opportunity to get involved in a book. Why not try and make this into a theme of some sort? For example you could incorporate tiger print pillows in your den to make it “The Tiger Who Came to Tea” themed!

PSED

7. Share a Story

Sharing favourite stories and books with one another is a great way to support social development and also expose children to different books that their peers or even their family enjoy.

Understanding the World

8. Growing hungry caterpillars

“The Very Hungry Caterpillar” is a tale we all know and love so why not make some caterpillars of your own! Taking a sheet of tissue paper per caterpillar, simply roll it up around a pencil or straw and scrunch it together. Remove them from the straw and add drops of water to the caterpillars and watch as they expand – a fun STEAM activity to accompany a much loved book.

9. Georges marvelous medicine experiment

Why not introduce the story “George’s Marvellous Medicine” by Roald Dahl to your children and then see what sort of experiments they can cook up? Our favourite is a fizzing volcano but what will your children create!

10. Bake or cook something from your favourite book

Baking is a brilliant way to bring a story to life and teach children new skills. Why not try and bake a cake just like the one from the Tiger Who Came to Tea or from Matilda! Whilst measuring and weighing the ingredients, children will develop some key scientific skills they can use in later life!

Communication and Language

11. Turn your favourite book into a play

Acting out your classes favourite book is a great way to develop key communication and language skills as well as confidence! It will also encourage children to think deeply about the story and the characters involved as they transform this into a dramatic performance

12. Put on a puppet show

Alternatively, why not try a puppet show? With all the same benefits as a play, puppets can be used on a much smaller scale. Puppets can be made from something as simple as a wooden spoon or sock or could be from a story set – selected to accompany a particular book

13. Write a letter to the author

After reading a story with the class, why not encourage them to write to the author and ask them questions about the story. This activity will give children the opportunity to think critically about the book they have read or listened to and will give them practice with writing and grammar.

14. Storytelling with music

Music can be used so easily to enhance a story! One example is to use simple instruments or objects from around your setting to create the noises that appear in the stories. For example, when the Very Hungry Caterpillar pops out of its egg why not use an instrument to convey this sound?

15. Mystery book bags

For this activity, you will need to write some clues related to a particular story and add these clues into a bag. Children will pull clues out one by one as see how many they need before they can accurately guess which book it is. This activity is another opportunity for children to analyze stories they know to be able to guess what book the clues are referring to.

16. Going on a bear hunt treasure hunt

A treasure hunt is always a crowd pleaser amongst children. Why not make like the characters in the famous book “We’re all going on a bear hunt” and hide a toy bear for your children to seek? Alternatively why not use the actions in the story to create an obstacle course for your children to go “over”, “under” and “through”?

Literacy

17. Rewrite your own ending

Let’s test some creative writing! Task your children to rewrite the ending of one of their favourite books – for example, what else could the caterpillar have come out of the cocoon as?

18. Retell a story cubes

Similarly, why not use a prompt like our Retell a Story Cubes or our Action Rory Story Cubes to boost reading and listening comprehension? These cubes can be rolled mid story and children can answer the question that appears, for example – what do you think will happen next, what are the characters’ feeling?

19. Book bingo/reading challenge

To encourage your class to read more, try and introduce a reading challenge! This could be as simple as read all the books on this list OR…

20. Word Hunt Bingo

Test children further by providing a list of objects on a bingo sheet and see if children can find all of them in the books that they read!

21. Extreme Reading

What is the craziest place you can read a book? Add an element of silly fun to reading by encouraging children to read a book in the most random of locations – this could be the bath, on a swing or under a table!

22. Story relay

Support children’s writing development in a fun and interactive way with this activity. Provide your class with the start of a story, then encourage them to take it in turns writing a sentence or a paragraph to the story. What will you end up with at the end?!

Maths

23. Maths Elmer colour in

Who says Maths and Literacy can’t be combined? Using a sheet of paper or better yet, a tuff tray paper pad, draw your Elmer Elephant and add squares to its body to represent it’s patches. In each of these squares add a number that corresponds with a particular colour. Children will need to identify the numbers and match them to the correct colours to colour Elmer in.

24. Very hungry caterpillar maths

Why not use the story of the Very Hungry Caterpillar to teach children about numbers and even fractions. The food items that the caterpillar eats could be used to represent numbers and fractions visually to encourage engagement and interest from children whilst giving them help through visualization.

Final activities

25. Book quiz

Who doesn’t love a quiz! After your class has read or listened to a story why not test their comprehension with a quiz? Children will be aware they need to listen more intently to the book to be able to answer accurately

26. Make a soundtrack to accompany your favourite book

This activity is a great way for children to explore music and sound as well as think critically about a story – is it happy, is it sad, should different characters have different instruments to represent them?

27. Guess who – the book character edition

This is a great game to test children’s descriptive language and comprehension of a story. You can either use the boards from the guess who game and add cut outs of characters from books or just stick these images to sheets of paper. In pairs, children will need to ask yes or no questions about the appearance or characteristics of the characters to be able to determine who it is!

28. Storytelling tuff tray set up

Why not add a memorable and interactive side to your stories? Encourage children to participate in small world play in a tuff tray – this could be using small world animals to represent those in Dear Zoo for example!