25 Book Week Activities for Every Year Level (2026)
Mrs Edgar · Book Week
Book Week runs 22–28 August 2026, and this year’s theme is Symphony of Stories — a year that also marks 80 years of the CBCA Book of the Year Awards.
Below are twenty-five activities: fifteen built around recent CBCA shortlisted titles and sorted by year level, then ten that work with absolutely any book on your shelf. Use the second set if you haven’t got the shortlist, if your library copies are already out on loan, or if you simply want something you can run on Monday without planning.
For author interviews, downloadable resources and the current shortlist, the CBCA website is the place to start.
Foundation to Year 1
Tiny Explorers, Big Imaginations
All about getting little learners moving, imagining and creating — from fairy-fuelled STEM to dung beetle drama and spiral art hunts.
Tooth Fairy STEM Challenge
Inspired by Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Tooth Fairy
Set up a creative challenge where students design a new “Tooth Fairy Delivery Device” from craft materials. Photograph their creations, then use an app like ChatterPix to make the inventions talk and explain how they work.
Wobbly Wheels Obstacle Course
Inspired by The Wobbly Bike
Build an outdoor obstacle course where students pretend they’re learning to ride a wobbly bike. Link it to perseverance and trying new things, then reflect as a group on something tricky they’ve each learned.
Dung Beetle Role-Play Adventure
Inspired by One Little Dung Beetle
Turn the classroom into a mini ecosystem. Children act out different insects or animals from the story and imagine daily life in their miniature world. Magnified insect photos or short clips on the interactive whiteboard make it properly immersive.
Want to extend it? Our Animal Report Template helps students record what they discover — made for young researchers.
Zoo on the Move Drama Activity
Inspired by How to Move a Zoo
Re-enact the book with props and boxes, with children taking turns as the animals or the zoo movers. Extend it digitally using Book Creator to make a class story titled How We Moved Our Own Zoo.
Spiro Shape Hunt and Art Adventure
Inspired by Spiro
Go on a classroom or playground shape hunt and photograph every spiral and swirl you can find. Back inside, students turn their images into spiral-inspired collages.
Years 2 and 3
Bold Book Week Quests
For students ready to think a little deeper — storytelling, drama, teamwork and a bit of tech.
Felix’s Worry-Free Toolkit
Inspired by Don’t Worry, Felix
After reading, students brainstorm ways to manage big emotions, then build a class digital “worry-free toolkit” in Canva or Google Slides. Each student contributes one slide with a calming strategy and a drawing.
Tooth Fairy Fact vs Fiction Debate
Turn fairy lore into critical thinking. Read Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Tooth Fairy, then discuss which parts are make-believe and which might be based on fact. Chart the responses and vote.
Aggie Flea Puppet Show
Inspired by Aggie Flea Steals the Show
Bring this theatrical story to life with sock puppets or an app like Puppet Pals. Pairs or small groups retell scenes, or invent Aggie’s next big performance.
Adventure Passport Journals
Students make a passport where each stamp represents a book read during Book Week, with a short reflection for each: what happened, where did the book take you, what was the most exciting moment. This stamp template is a good starting point.
Bushranger Adventure Trail
Inspired by Tigg and the Bandicoot Bushranger
Set up a scavenger hunt around the school grounds using clues from the story. Include questions that need teamwork to solve, so comprehension and collaboration get a workout at the same time.
Years 4 to 6
Adventures Await: Big Ideas for Big Readers
Creative and critical thinking, with room for tech and genuine reflection.
Book Trailer Creations
Inspired by Birdy, Into the Mouth of the Wolf, A Wreck of Seabirds
Students choose an Older Readers title and build a dramatic book trailer in iMovie, Canva Video or Adobe Express. Push them to focus on mood, theme and character — without spoiling the plot.
Identity Mapping
Inspired by I’m Not Really Here
After reading an excerpt, students create identity maps — digital or paper — showing the different parts of themselves: family, hobbies, culture, strengths. Follow with reflective group conversations about belonging and visibility.
Debate Club: Should We Explore the Unknown?
Inspired by Comes the Night and Into the Mouth of the Wolf
Debate a big question: should we always seek adventure, even when it’s risky? Groups develop arguments using scenes from the books as evidence, then present.
Interactive Adventure Maps
Using Google My Maps or plain paper, students design an imaginary book-inspired world with landmarks drawn from favourite books or the CBCA shortlist. QR codes can link to their own written scenes or voice narrations.
Story Circles and Creative Journaling
Inspired by The Skin I’m In
After discussing themes of identity, invite students into story circles where they can share — only if they choose — something that makes them unique. Follow with journaling: a story or poem called The Adventure of Being Me.
No shortlist needed
Ten Activities That Work With Any Book
For the classes whose library copies are all on loan, and the weeks where planning time ran out. Every one of these works with whatever is already on your shelf.
Finger Puppets and Props
Foundation–Year 2Puppets and simple props turn a read-aloud into something children lean forward for. They also lower the stakes for the shy ones — a child who won’t answer a question will often answer as a puppet.
Design a New Book Cover
any year levelStudents redesign the cover of a favourite book, which quietly teaches them what covers are actually doing: colour, imagery, typography, and the promise a cover makes about the story. Younger students can collage from magazines; older ones can use Canva.
Read-Alouds on Screen
A well-made online read-aloud brings vivid narration and visuals to a book you don’t have twenty copies of. Useful for introducing a shortlisted title before the physical book arrives, and a good discussion starter on illustration style.
Student-Led Read-Alouds
buddy classesOlder students prepare and perform a read-aloud for a younger class. They rehearse for fluency and expression without being told they’re practising fluency and expression, and the younger class gets a reading role model who isn’t an adult.
Book Reviews
A short review with a star rating gives every student a way to recommend something to the class. Collected on a wall, they become the most-used book list in the room — children trust each other’s recommendations more than ours.
Act It Out
Performing a scene forces students to decide how a character feels and why, which is comprehension work wearing a costume. Works with a dramatic chapter, a picture book, or a single page.
Comic Strips and Mini Graphic Novels
Year 2 and upRetelling a chapter as a comic strip is genuinely hard: students have to choose which moments matter, compress the dialogue and show the rest. Excellent for summarising, and popular with reluctant writers.
Audiobooks for Quiet Time
Save these for rainy lunches and the flat stretch after lunch. An audiobook builds listening stamina, gives your voice a rest, and introduces students to authors and genres they’d never pick up themselves.
Roll a Story
needs one dieStudents roll to determine character, setting and a plot twist, then write or tell the story that results. Fast, funny, and a painless way into narrative structure.
Book-Themed Craft
Mini booklets, character puppets, story-scene dioramas. Keep it to twenty minutes and tie it to something specific in the text, and craft stops being filler and starts being evidence of comprehension.
However you celebrate, Book Week is really about showing children that a story is worth climbing into. Building identity maps, role-playing dung beetles, solving schoolyard mysteries — it all points the same way. Happy Book Week.
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