Celebrating World Book Day

World Book Day is an annual celebration of the written word that takes place on April 23 (the UK celebrates in March, which makes it not quite a world day, but still). This day was chosen because it was the day Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare died.

April 12 is also Drop Everything and Read Day, and the week of May 6-12, 2024, will also be Children’s Book Week, so you can use these ideas for those celebrations, too.

It’s fun to celebrate books in the classroom and at home any time, but this day is an especially good excuse to read, write, illustrate and talk about books.

Here are some ideas of things you can do in the classroom or at home to celebrate World Book Day:

Dress up as characters from books. There are so many great costume ideas out there but here are a few roundups to get you started: Crafts on Sea | Clean Eating with Kids (get the Diary of a Wimpy Kid printables from them) | Finding Myself Young | Desert Chica
Print and color or otherwise make bookmarks. I have a collection of printable bookmarks to color, and another one here, or you can get out your art supplies and have kids design their own. And if you want to make a big activity of it, you can even get kids to stitch their own bookmarks.
Design a reading fort. If you have room in your classroom or house for a dedicated reading space, you can actually make it, or just have kids draw a design for their own ideal reading space.
Write a book. You can make books out of a piece of paper with these instructions from Instructables, or use journaling paper with space for a drawing (you can download lined pages with space to draw from Paper Trail Design).
Show and tell or book tasting. Depending on the age of the kids, have them bring a favorite book from home to talk about, or write about a favorite book to share with their classmates. More on how to do a book tasting here.
Read books! If kids bring books from home they can share those, or pick from your classroom books. If the weather is nice you can read outside, or try something else fun like turning off the lights and reading with flashlights.
Host a book swap. Kids can bring books from home they aren’t reading and swap for others they might be interested in. Books that don’t get picked can go in the classroom or school library or be donated to a Little Free Library.
Go to the library. Speaking of libraries, if your family hasn’t visited your local library in a while, take a trip there. Or do a tour of local Little Free Libraries if your town has a lot.

If you celebrate World Book Day or any of the other upcoming bookish holidays, I’d love to hear what you do!

[Image by Sasin Tipchai from Pixabay]

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Learning about Deaf History Month

I’m in deep denial about the fact that new year is almost upon us again! It’s been the fastest and the longest year at the same time, and I can look back and see some good things as well as some things I wish had gone differently.

Doing a year in review with your kids — whether in the classroom or at home — is a good way to capture some of their memories and the things they really liked about the year gone by.

There are a lot of different printable year in review worksheets you can use if you want to make this super easy. Here are links to a few (often part of larger posts about NYE celebrations with kids that are worth a read, too):

Teach Beside Me has lots of fun printables fro the end of the year, including a year in review that covers favorite memory, funniest memory and the best book they read, among other topics.
NurtureStore‘s version has space for a self-portrait and prompts like favorite toy, best day out this year and future dream job.
Remember favorites, their “best idea” of the year and have room for setting goals for next year with this one from The Keele Deal.
The year in review from Yes We Made This has room for drawing or writing and includes things like something they learned, a memory they made and a place they visited.

Of course you could pretty easily make your own year in review for the whole family to do that asks questions based on what you most want to remember. (Favorite video game? Best friend? Favorite family memory?)

And if after the year in review you’re ready to look ahead a bit, Mrs. Merry has new year’s resolution printables to inspired kids to look ahead and set goals for things they want to try. You can totally fill this one out as a grownup, too.

[Photo: Mrs. Merry]

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