Our Activity Bank
Explore ideas from our partners and fellow teachers and practitioners that support our 6 elements of Reading for Pleasure. Great for the classroom and to use at home.
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Children need to have time, and be taught the skills, to share and discuss books with others.
- Introduce book-talk in an inclusive way, recognising that children may like to share their opinions in different ways (e.g., oral, written) and to different people (e.g., friends, whole class, anonymously, etc)
- Develop children’s skills and confidence to contribute to book-talk if this is new to them.
- Social reading activities can extend beyond the classroom. Involve families and the local community in your own schools’ reading community.
Children need to connect with the books that they read
- Audit, organise and celebrate diversity within books. Take stock of the books available in your school and classrooms and plan future purchases to reflect the interests, lives and experiences of all your students
- Encourage children to explore personally meaningful content when they read, by introducing reflective literacy practices so that children make connections between what they read and their own interests, lives and experiences
- Encourage children to reflect on why they want to read, and then find books aligned with this. Books offer all types of reading experiences (e.g., make us laugh, relax, escape to new worlds, offer familiarity, etc). Choosing a book aligned with our mood has the potential to lead to greater connection with the book.
Children need to have quality time to read books they enjoy, and are engaged with, in school and at home.
- Ensure quality time is set aside for reading in school, and that children have a book they enjoy reading during this time
- Nurture reading outside of school by allowing children to take books they enjoy home and encouraging reading time at home
- Create extra opportunities to read in school, for example in breakfast or after school clubs, reading clubs, etc.
- Ensure children have opportunities to swap a book if they are not enjoying it.
Children should have choice over their reading activities
To create a structure, and equip children with the skills, to improve their reading choices by encouraging
- Discussion and teaching of strategies for children to select books
- Scaffolding reading choices, particularly for less experienced readers, by providing fewer book options aligned with their interests and abilities.
- Ensuring books are organised optimally in the school library and/or classrooms to facilitate student choice (e.g., by book, genre) and that children understand this structure. Also include visible reviews (e.g., written by children) to support choice
- Peer to peer and teacher to peer recommendations and book-talk to support each other’s reading choices.
Children need access to books which reflect their interests, preferences, lives, experiences and abilities
- Involve children in new book purchases to ensure book provision reflects the interests, preferences, lives, experiences and abilities of all the children in your class or school.
- Read aloud to increase access to books children wouldn’t encounter otherwise
- Strengthen the relationship with your local community library to support book provision
- Fundraise or encourage families to get involved in book swaps/donations from home.
A World Book Day character party
Create a party set up (food table, dance floor, seating area), put some music on and invite your children to enter the party as their character/book. Or provide stickers for the children to wear.
Where would they go? Who would they talk to? Who might they try and avoid?
Support the children with introductions and ask them questions. Stop the music to freeze the party and ask them what they are doing and why. Children who have opted for a non-fiction title might need additional prompting – encourage them to consider the fictional characters that would most like or need their book.
Turn party games into book recommendation games
Never have I ever….
Students take turns trying to find books that haven’t been written for example:
• Never have I ever read a book with a vampire as the main character…
• Never have I ever read a book set here…
Award points for categories that no-one can think of a book recommendation for.
Two truths and a lie
Students tell two truths and a lie about a book they have read. They can even include a fake title if they want to really trip people up!
Guess Who?
Grab your detective’s hat and polish your magnifying glass, it’s time to get guessing… Draw or dress up as your favourite book character and play a giant game of ‘Guess Who?’ on the floor! Download your free resource sheet here.
Charades
Students act out a book title. You could ask them to drop their favourite book title into a bowl and then each person pulls out a title to enact.
The Sculptor
Students transform a friend into a book character using posture alone. They win points for every correct guess. You could prepare for this by inviting students to find character descriptions in their favourite books – they could read these out as clues if the group can’t guess by the posture alone.
Fictionary
Pick some book titles that you would like your class to read – provide each table with the title and the first line of the blurb, ask them to generate 3 other fake lines of blurb for the same title. When you’re ready to play ask each table to guess the right answer from the selection. The teams win points for every wrong title that is guessed and the guessers win points for every right answer.
Make a human library
Perfect a quickfire book recommendation
Get students in pairs to describe their book – give them 2 minutes to start with then swap partners, drop the time by 30 seconds and repeat until each child has a 30 second summary.
Then…
Make a human library
Divide the class in half and create an inner and outer circle – invite students in the inner circle to present their 30 second book introduction before the outer ring moves round one place. Repeat this several times. Ask them which books they would like to take out of the library – you could move on to reading aloud the early pages of popular titles.
Make dressing up inclusive for secondary
• Just 3 items: can students create a character or book from just 3 items from home or school?
• Provide options for students who prefer non-fiction – offer options to share favourite facts or be the author using costumes or props.
• Customise t-shirts
• The cardboard challenge: provide brown cardboard and a time limit of 30 minutes. Invite students to create a key prop or clothing item. Involve your Art and Design colleagues to support this activity.
• Make badges.
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