Teaching Ideas for World Book Day

Ages: 5-11

World Book Day is an exciting celebration of reading, authors, illustrators and books.

If you’re planning to celebrate this day with your children, try some of these teaching ideas and classroom activities!

English

Read an excerpt of your favourite book to a partner. Explain why you like it and ask them for their opinion.
Write an alternative ending to your favourite story.
Create a biography of your favourite author.
Find teaching ideas, activities and resources for hundreds of popular children’s books on our site.
Think of questions that you could ask your favourite author.
Use a random story generator as the starting point for your own story, e.g. Scholastic Story Starters.
Compare a book with an animated / movie version of it. Which do you prefer? Why? How is the movie similar or different to the original text?
Have a ‘Masked Reader’ competition where members of staff record videos of themselves reading, but with their appearance hidden. Can your children work out who they are by listening carefully to their voice (or solving some clues)?
Watch one of the videos in our gallery and create a book that retells the story.
Ask your teachers / families what their favourite books are, what the books are about and why they like them. Are their preferences similar / different to your own?
Write a summary of a story in the form of a ‘tweet’. Can you condense the plot into 140 characters?
Try some of these activities based on the ‘Don’t Let the Pigeon…’ books.
Create a social media post, blog post or vlog from the point of view of a character at an important point in their story.
Help your children to learn about the different parts of a book with our free poster. Could your children make their own version of it?

Make an acrostic poem based on the title of your favourite story.
Use the title of your favourite story to create anagrams. Can you make other words using the letters in the title?
Design a poster to advertise your favourite book.
Try this interesting Book Circle activity.
Turn a book into a playscript.
Write a book quiz to test your friends’ book knowledge.
Interview a local librarian to ask them about their favourite books. What are the most popular books in their library?
Share some stories from Storytime Online together.
Create a newspaper report that tells people how you celebrated World Book Day.
Try some of the activities in our Comprehension Pack. The ‘What can you see, infer and ask?’ image prompts are incredibly popular!

Maths

Carry out a survey to find out the favourite books / authors of the children in your class.
Think of different ways of sorting and grouping books (e.g. reading level, author, genre, themes).
Think of ways of ordering books (e.g. by date of first publication or by number of pages).
Choose a page from a book. Work out the average number of words per sentence.
Have a ‘Sponsored Read’. Count how many pages each person reads and use this for data handling activities. How much money did you raise?

Science

Could you read a non-fiction book about a famous scientist? Could you write your own biography about a scientist that you admire?

Computing

Create a book trailer to advertise your favourite book.
Use publishing software to design a new cover for your favourite book… or a book cover for one of your own stories.
Create a game based on the characters / events in one of your favourite books.
Record an audiobook version of your favourite story (or part of it). Can you edit the audio to include sound effects and music?
Create an eBook version of your favourite story (or part of it). Add your own illustrations or some clip art to accompany the text.
Design a website to promote your favourite book.
Design an app that is linked to your favourite book.
Make a quiz about a books, authors and illustrators.
Design a leaflet that recommends books for different age groups.
Watch this video in which author Malorie Blackman talks about how to structure a story. Could you record your own series of videos that give tips about story writing?

Create a database that gives information about different books.
Create a branching database to help others choose a book that they might like.
Take digital photos of yourself reading in unusual situations (e.g. in the playground, in the headteacher’s office). Use these to create an ‘Extreme Reading’ display board.
Try to recreate the title of a story using Emoji.
Create your own ‘book review’ podcast / radio show. Could you publish this online and ask the audience to share their own book reviews?
Enter a page / paragraph from your favourite book into Wordle or Tagxedo. Which words appear most often? Why?
Record a ‘Bedtime Story’ video version of your favourite book. Watch this example:

Design Technology

Can you make your own pop-up book?
Design a board or card game that is based on a book.
Dress up a potato, carrot or a stick as your favourite book character.
Create puppets that represent the characters in a book. Could you use your puppets to retell the story?
Design and make a bookmark.

Art

Create a storyboard that summarises your favourite story in four, six or eight scenes.
Draw one (or more) of the characters in your favourite book. What do you imagine they look like? What information does the author give you about their appearance?
Choose your favourite scene from a story and draw an illustration of it.
Can you draw a picture that shows a scene from the point of view of one of the characters in a book?

Music

Compose a melody that could accompany a movie version of your favourite story.

Geography

Plot the locations of your favourite stories on a map.
Draw a map of your favourite book. What locations are mentioned in it and how do they relate to each other?
Plan a visit to your local library. How will you get there? What route will you take?

History

Find out the main events in the life of a favourite author and create a timeline to show these. Did any other important historical events take place in those years? Use our Fact Cards to find out information about different authors.

PSHE

Which books are important to you? Perhaps they were given to you by someone special, or they bring back happy memories. Do you have any special books in your family?