World Book Day: Songs That Bring Stories Alive
As World Book Day approaches, a marked favourite day in every school’s calendar, finding the right activity that captures the magic of reading and storytelling for your students can feel challenging. Whether you want to hold a World Book Day assembly or simply explore some beloved stories, why not do so through the fantastic learning tool that is music?
Our songpacks that celebrate cherished books and stories are not only free, but would make a perfect World Book Day assembly activity. So, if you’re a teacher looking for last-minute World Book Day ideas, have a look at our most popular songpacks and free World Book Day lesson plan or indulge in our musicals based on classic tales!
Why Celebrate World Book Day?
World Book Day is an opportunity for your students to learn about classic and modern literature, express themselves through costume and music and enjoy class-based reading activities! The day serves as a reminder of how wonderful it feels to get lost within a story, become a mystical character and escape into an elaborately magical world.
At The School Musicals Company, we believe that World Book Day should be championed in all schools, which is why we have provided free resources and ideas for teachers to use!
Use Our Free World Book Day Songbooks!
We have two fantastic songbooks that contain toe-tapping tunes and celebrate the joys of reading and the magic of getting lost in a story — especially for young, imaginative minds!
- Books! Songpack – This pack contains two wonderful songs that delightfully capture the importance of World Book Day for your students. The pack also includes the assembly, backing track, sheet music and lyrics in PowerPoint and Word, which could make for a stellar last-minute World Book Day assembly idea. We even have a sing-along version of the songs on YouTube, and the best part is that this songpack is free when you use the code BOOKS100 at checkout!
- Scripts & Songs From Classic Stories – This pack contains songs about classic childhood stories of adventure and discovery, from the timeless tale of friendship in The Wizard of Oz to Charles Dickens’ favourite, Oliver Twist! as an ideal resource for World Book Day ideas for schools, this songpack contains four wonderful songs (each from a different story), lyric sheets, backing tracks and fully editable script excerpts. You can also get this songpack for free when you use the code SSCS100 at checkout!
World Book Day Lesson Plan Idea for Teachers
Our remarkable playwright, Emily Martin, has devised a comprehensive free World Book Day lesson plan to introduce your students to classic stories in engaging and musically-inspired ways! In her introduction, Emily notes that her primary school students could recite key characters and moments from the original The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling because she used our child-friendly musical adaptation to teach them the story!
She also provides a seven-step lesson plan that would perfectly complement any of the script samples provided in our free songpacks or in her introduction. This lesson plan would be a lovely activity for World Book Day as it’ll immerse your students in the drama and jeopardy of these much-loved stories!
World Book Day Assembly Ideas for Teachers
Why not drive right into a celebrated World Book Day story, like Pantastic, which is based on J. M. Barrie’s enchanting Peter Pan, with a musical assembly for your school? Many of our musicals take inspiration from classic literature that your students would love to explore. By incorporating songs or a musical into your World Book Day itinerary, your students can learn about these characters by stepping into their shoes and imagining how they think, feel and move. There’s no better way to understand a story than to step into its pages!
Use Our Resources For Your World Book Day Activities
World Book Day is a truly wonderful opportunity to indulge in classic children’s literature and reignite your students’ passion for storytelling. Retelling these stories through the power of music will not only be an engaging and fun activity, but it’ll also remind your students that literature, like performing on stage, is a form of art.
Encourage them to dress as their favourite characters or the one they’re playing, and use our World Book Day songpack and lesson plan to get your class excited! If you have any questions about our free resources, songpacks and child-friendly musical materials, please don’t hesitate to contact us today. Or, for more ideas about song-related activities for KS1 or KS2 assemblies, please visit our blog.