While book reports can be a great school activity to gauge what your children learned, they can be boring to create. Have you considered thinking outside of the box and finding book report ideas that your children might actually enjoy?
When it comes to homeschooling you want your child to have a love of reading and a love of learning. Boring them with book reports simply will not achieve this. Instead of having your child write up a standard book report, challenge them to create something fun and exciting!
10+ Fun Book Report Ideas
- Create a cereal box design based on the book they read.
This is a great activity for highly visual kids. From adding characters to the front of the box to giving book details in place of nutrition facts. This is option is a lot of fun and will challenge your child’s creative side.
- Design a game using characters, settings and events from the book.
Having your child create the file folder game will allow them to think back to the book every time they play. Creating games is an easy way to encourage siblings to talk about the books they read with each other. This is also a great way to build up a stock of fun file folder games to entertain your kids.
- Challenge your child to become a travel agent and create a brochure for a setting in the book the read.
This will challenge your child to really think about the setting of the book and the adventures that are possible in that setting. Encourage them to make the worst places seem fun and exciting. This is an opportunity to teach them that not everything they read is a truthful depiction of reality.
- Take a trip to the local thrift store and give your child a budget to choose an outfit to dress up as a character from the book they read.
Your child will have to pay close attention to details the author gives on the appearance of the characters. They will also need to be creative to make their own costume, as well as stay in the budget you gave them.
- Fictional diary entries are a great way for children to connect to the characters in a book.
This will require your child to put themselves in the shoes of the characters. They will have to consider both the characters and the details of the events in the book as they create their diary entries.
- Have your child write an alternate ending.
Test your child’s comprehension of the story by challenging them to write an alternate ending to a book. They will have to contemplate the many different possibilities before deciding on which they will use. This is a great activity for your future authors, as many authors have no idea where the story will go as they are writing. Often they leave the door wide open to allow your children to pull details from the book into their alternate ending.
- Set up an interview with your child playing the role of the author.
This can be a fun way to have your child step into their creative side. It also will test your child’s comprehension and memory of the book while they pretend to be the author of the book they read.
- Design a mini-book for their book report.
Each page of their mini-book can cover different vital details from characters to setting and plot. If you do this for several books you’ll have a cute mini-library perfect for use with dolls for imaginative play. This can be particularly engaging for children that love the popular American Girl® dolls.
- Encourage them to create a video.
Kids obsessed with YouTube will get a kick out of doing a video book report. This is great for reluctant writers that would rather give their report verbally.
- Have your child write a song about the book they read.
This is such a fun and creative way for them to show what they have learned. It also gives your child the opportunity to include their interests in their learning, which will cause them to be more excited to complete the project.
- A young scientist would love to come up with a science project or new invention to help solve a problem in the book they read.
Creating such a project would prove that your child understands the struggles in the plot, while also giving them a creative outlet for their young minds.
- Have your child create their own book report ideas.
Give your child free reign in their own learning and you may be pleasantly surprised with the amount of thought and work they put into creating the perfect book report!
The key to making book reports fun is to give your child the opportunity to try something new.
Try giving your child a list of books to read and different style book reports they will need to complete. Then let them decide which book will become which style book report.
How do you make book reports fun for your kids?
