9 of the best teaching resources for Children’s Book Week
If you ever needed a reason to open up a book in your classroom, here are a handful to use as the perfect excuse this week…
1 | BookTrust Great Books Guide
To celebrate Children’s Book Week, Booktrust’s guide highlights some of the brilliant titles published in the past year that will help families along their reading journey, and for the first time it includes book recommendations for ages 0-5 and 12+.
The full ist includes 60 books in all, so there’s sure to be loads that you and your students haven’t read, or even heard of.
You’ll find books like The Cat and the King (for which we have an excellent free book topic), There’s a Werewolf in my Tent, Everybunny Dance!, The Cave and Jacqueline Wilson’s Wave me Goodbye.
Find the full list here or download it as a PDF here.
2 | Classic texts KS2 reading comprehension packs
These reading challenge mats provide a quick burst of comprehension practice, ideal for morning work, a short reading session or even sparking an interest in a classic text.
Each mat contains a brief extract from a classic text with a range of reading challenge questions focusing on the key reading skills of inference, information retrieval and the use of language.
There are three packs available, each of which use three classic texts. Click each link to find them:
- Pack 1
The Invisible Man by HG Wells, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain - Pack 2
Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson, Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens and The Time Machine by HG Wells - Pack 3
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, Dracula by Bram Stoker and The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
3 | Strategies For Reluctant Readers
If it looks like your child would rather do anything other than pick up a book, Kenny Pieper has some advice that could change things…
4 | Empathy and Emotion with The Day the Crayons Quit
Ignored, stereotyped and diminished, if the crayons in your classroom could talk, they might object to their treatment. Understanding why leads to great lesson activities, such as looking at emotion cards, getting creative with colours and dramatising feelings.
5 | Five book topics for mythology and folk tales
Deconstruct fairy tales with Don’t Read this Book!, explore the ethics of magic in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, compare different versions of folk tales with In Their Shoes, use Black Dog to look at the symbols and imagery of fear and ponder where myths of the sea come from in Oliver and the Seawigs.
You can find all five of these free book topics here.
6 | Literary travel posters
Who doesn’t love a retro-style travel poster? And who doesn’t love imagining themselves in a fictional landscape from their favourite tale? So why not combine the two?
It seems people on the internet love the concept. Just check out some of these excellent artworks from places like Narnia, Arandelle and Middle Earth that can serve as inspiration for your class.
- Emerald City, Wonderland and Narnia
- Rivendell
- Barad-dûr
- Hobbiton
- Star Wars and other sci-fi
- Arandelle
- Hogwarts Express
- Neverland
You could even extend the activity with this idea from susanstephenson.com and have them create a travel brochure.
7 | Money matters
KS2 PSHE Lesson Plan – Use Millions by Frank Cottrell Boyce to teach children about managing their money.
The thought of teaching finance can be daunting, but managing money is an important life skill and one that needs to be developed from a young age. Because money can be a sensitive subject, the best approach is to use tried and tested distancing techniques, such as stories.
Looking at financial dilemmas through the eyes of fictional characters creates a safe learning environment, allowing pupils to reflect on what they have learnt and apply it to their own lives.
This lesson plan uses Millions by Frank Cottrell Boyce, which presents a number of fairly complex economic and personal finance issues, such as tax and mortgages, in a way that is perfectly age-appropriate.
8 | Eight book Topics for writing activities
Here you’ll find 8 free book topics that cover various writing activities, from persuasive writing to crafting tales from real-life experiences, diary entries, news reports and more.
- Arrival by Shaun Tan
- The Spiderwick Chronicles by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi.
- The Great Mouse Plot by Roald Dahl
- Shackleton’s Journey by William Grill
- This Morning, I Met a Whale by Michael Morpurgo
- The Dragon Snatcher by MP Robertson
- The Amazing Tale of Ali Pasha by Michael Foreman
- Skellig by David Almond
9 | Six lesson plans for Roald Dahl’s George’s Marvellous Medicine
Lesson plans, fun activity sheets and extracts for teaching literacy and PSHE using George’s Marvellous Medicine. There are six lessons in total, suitable for KS2 (and upper KS1) that cover subjects such as inference, using the best verbs, adjectives and adverbs, and using punctuation to generate excitement.