You won’t be surprised to discover that we have had several bookish themed activities and days whilst we’ve been schooling at home. Of course we read daily, but then we have expanded on the reading theme through a variety of activities and I thought that it might be useful to share them with you. I’m sure many of us are reaching the point where inspiration and enthusiasm are waning! So here are a few ideas and resources for you to try, our 11 books and reading related activities for children:
1. Have a day filled with Harry Potter themed activities. I have plenty of Harry Potter ideas pinned over here and when we had a Harry Potter day we enjoyed:
Creating a magical creature
Writing a recipe for a potion
Crafting a spell
Writing a ‘day in the life’ diary entry as if living at Hogwarts
Designing a sock to free Dobby
Online Harry Potter quizzes
And you can round the day off reading a Harry Potter book and watching one of the films. Perfect!
2. Try some fun literature quizzes, you’ll find some good ones at Booktrust, Scholastic and School Reading List.
3. Join in with the Reading Agency’s summer reading challenge.
4. Create your own reading challenge grid.
5. Have a day filled with Roald Dahl activities. Along with reading the books and dressing up as the characters, there are plenty of activities and resources available from sites such as The Official Roald Dahl website, Twinkl, Science Sparks, Activity Village.
6. Take to YouTube and Google to learn more about famous classic authors or current favourites.
7. Start or join a bookclub and readalong together.
8. Write your own version of a book you love, for example change the ending, add a new character or create an adventure within the same setting.
9. Compare Shakespeare plays to their Disney movie counterparts e.g. Hamlet and The Lion King.
10. Grab several books off your shelves and try the following activities with them:
Identify and discuss their genres
Rewrite the blurb of one that’s been read
Write a book review
Compare two books. Think about the similarities and the differences and how you feel about each book.
Pull out the comparisons between fiction and non fiction titles
Redesign a front cover
11. Read together. As kids get older and can read to themselves, this one can be easy to overlook. But there are many reasons to continue reading aloud together, so it can be worth having a book that you all listen to and read together, along with independent reads. We share our favourite books for 10 years olds and then 7 year olds here.
Hopefully this list has given you a few ideas of books and reading activities for children that you could try. What other activities have you beend doing, I’d love to hear all about them?
I’ve been reading The Secret Garden with my older son for the last few weeks. He’s a really strong reader and independent. But he’s loving it, he has loads of ideas about where the story’s going and questions about society at that time. It’s also lovely to spend a quiet 20 minutes together at the end if each day.
It is, it’s exactly that, isn’t it? Fun to share the story together but also magical time spent together.