Get planning for the literary event of the year this March, and celebrate in style with these great teaching ideas…
World Book Day 2021 falls on Thursday 4 March, but it’s never to early to start thinking ahead and planning events for your school.
The official World Book Day website has been collecting ideas submitted by teachers for years, so it’s well worth checking out the full list here.
But to save you time, we’ve picked out our favourites that will promote reading and get kids excited about books in your school.
If you’re after teaching resources, we’ve also got you covered with our free World Book Day ideas activity pack and our list of 14 World Book Day 2020 ideas and resources for KS1 and KS2.
1 | Literacy murals
Posted by Daniel Thornhill, Derby
“We created two literacy murals representing both the ideas that come from reading and also the house system of our Academy. Students from the school worked with a local professional artist to design the original wall, and as it was so successful we created another.”
2 | Create a supervillain
Posted by Lucy Hennessy, Bristol
“We had a class discussion to create a supervillain. Our villain was called Trevor Vickers; International Story Stealer. Within class, we created crime scenes, newspaper articles and wanted posters for Trevor Vickers. We then wrote stories and chose wow words to defeat him. We then rounded it off with a huge pantomime where teachers dressed as Trevor and we acted out some of the stories we had created together.”
3 | Character personality
Posted by Julia Sutherland, Edinburgh
“Bedrooms reflect a person’s personality. Design one for the character in your story. Think about the things in your own bedroom, did you choose the wallpaper, duvet cover, bed? How long ago? What things do you have lying about devices, clothes, homework or old toys? Is it tidy or messy? Cut pictures out of magazines to show what it would look like and add reasons for your choices in text pop-outs.”
4 | Skype an author
Posted by Lisa Willcocks, Billesdon
“Have a Skype interview with children’s authors to raise the profile of reading in school, promote new literature and enable children to frame good-quality questions to find out information.”
5 | Blind date with a book
Posted by Valerie Black, Kilmarnock
“Last February, I wrapped up books in brown paper and wrote a dating-ad-style description on the front. Pupils chose a book based on the description. They weren’t allowed to unwrap the book until they left the library. Inside the package was a bookmark for pupils to fill in a book review. One winner was chosen from all the bookmarks that were handed back — they won a box of love heart sweets and a book.”
6 | Create a soundtrack to a reading
Posted by Geraldine Brennan, London
“Choose a short novel, story or narrative poem that’s fun to read aloud to a group (or play an audio book recording) and create sound effects for it. These can be self-generated (voices and body noises – clicking, shuffling, stamping and so on), hand-made (dried peas in a can) or sophisticated (using music technology software): do whatever resources and the group’s enthusiasm permits!”
7 | Extreme reading competition
“Get parents to take photos of their children reading in extreme (or at least very unusual) places on smartphones and email them in to school to display on World Book Day. Google ‘extreme reading’ for inspiration.”
8 | Book trailers
Posted by Susan Waller, Tunbridge Wells
“Book trailers are a great way for students to promote books to their peers and learn lots of skills too. They can be as simple as PowerPoint presentations or images put into Movie Maker or be full-blown videos. Online software such as Animoto can also be used. We held a competition which created a real buzz around favourite books, and we have a collection of trailers we can keep.”
9 | Comic making
Posted by Hannah Sackett, Bath
“Children made comics and mini-books based on their topic work. The finished comics were displayed in the hall and the children were given the chance to read each other’s comics.”
10 | Tasty book competition
Posted by Julie Settle, Thetford
“We ran a cake-making/decorating competition with entries based on a literary theme. The cakes were sold at lunchtime to raise funds for new books for the library.”
11 | Book speed dating
Posted by Madeleine Beach, Leicester
“We tried Book Speed-dating in the library About 20 students brought along a copy of their favourite book, and had a minute to tell the person opposite about it before swapping partners. At the end we hoped every student would have met a book they would like to read!”
12 | Six-word story competition
Posted by Lesley Pearce, Reading
“Using Ernest Hemingway as inspiration, who, as the legend goes, wrote: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” when challenged to write a story in just six words, organise a competition open to staff and students getting them to do the same.”
13 | Writes of passage
