Will you be celebrating World Book Day this year?

Taking place on March 5th, 2015, the day is a “celebration of authors, illustrators, books and (most importantly) it’s a celebration of reading.  In fact, it’s the biggest celebration of its kind, designated by UNESCO as a worldwide celebration of books and reading, and marked in over 100 countries all over the world.”  In its 18th year, children of all ages will “come together to appreciate reading.  Very loudly and very happily”.

The event’s website has plenty of resources including lesson plans, activity sheets and discussion guides available to download from its Nursery, Primary and Secondary areas.

And, if you’ve got a few bookworms in your house, there’s plenty more printables available to keep them entertained between chapters.

Bookstart is a charity that “offers the gift of free books to all children at two key ages before they start school to inspire a love of reading that will give children a flying start in life and to help families enjoy reading together every day”.  Its Activities to download include rhymetime sheets and Julia Donaldson activities.  If it’s a celebration then there should be cake right?  Well, print out the Gruffalo cake recipe and even that can be themed!  (Just make sure you’ve take the finger puppets off first before eating it if you’ve printed them off too…)

The Gruffalo celebrated his 15th anniversary in 2014 but he wasn’t the only one partying – Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar turned 45 last year!  Publisher Puffin put together a selection of activity sheets to mark the occasion including birthday ideas, make your own collage, a life cycle, maze, card and colouring sheet.  Children’s clothing company Gymboree are also fans of the transformative character and its author and include colouring sheets, mazes, connect the dots and memory games on its site to print and play.

For publisher Hatchette Children’s Books, Giraffes Can’t Dance is an “ever-lasting classic” from the pen of award-winning author Giles Andreae.  Its activity sheets not only include a colour in sheet and a maze but also a mask – print out on to card, cut out the eye holes and team with some yellow and brown clothes if your youngster fancies channeling Gerald’s fancy footwork or if you’re in need of a last minute costume if your children’s school doesn’t decide it’ll be expecting its pupils to attend in themed fancy dress on the day until March 4th.

Publisher Scholastic isn’t to be out done either inspired by its range of books to bring readers lots of Fun Stuff such as an Abracazebra Zebra mask (in case your children’s wardrobe is more likely to have white and black in it then yellow or brown or they’re just fans of stripes instead of patches), quizzes, drawing and colouring-in, games and puzzles including Pirates Love Underpants spot the difference, Horrible Histories Wicked Wordsearch, Fabulous Flapdoodle Monster Puzzle, Dragonese Word Puzzle and Swallows and Amazons Code Cracking.

If it is costume ideas you’re stuck for then take a look at The Guardian’s website for “fantastic step-by-step ingredients guides on how to dress up” as various characters including Angelina Ballerina, Where’s Wally or Wenda, the Worst Witch, the Wimpy Kid and Mr Strong or Little Miss Sunshine.

Young readers might like to colour in and cut out Crayola’s Bookworm Bookmark – “a way to keep bookworms from eating books is to keep using them, so open a book today and read” – but if that would take them away from  their latest adventure for too long then find some Foxy Bookmarks in brown and blue on Lonnie’s blog.

Or you can head to Sisters Guild for Vintage Alphabet & Bookplate Printables where A is for Animals and B is for a Boat ride.

And, if you want to further reward or encourage all the reading in your house or school, then check out Mrs Heren’s idea for Voracious Reader Tickets.  “I often pass tickets out to students who are going above and beyond with the amount of reading they are doing or for completing their home reading logs,” writes the 2nd Grade teacher.  “They have also been a motivator to my reluctant readers when trying to get them to read/finish more books.  Students get to place their tickets in a jar, which I then pull from at the end of the day for small prizes, candy stickers, etc.”

Do you love finding printables on the internet?  Do you have particular favourites?  Or have you featured some on your own blog?  Email karen.malpass@inkfactory.com with your links and we may be able to feature them in a future post.

Don’t miss our other literary printables posts:
National Storytelling Week
Harry Potter Book Night
If you go down to the train station today… (Paddington Bear)
World Nursery Rhyme Week
Dahlicious Dress Up Day