Pigeon Perfect!!!

 As many of y'all know by now...I LOVE Mo Willems!  The pigeon author study is one of my favorite times of the year!  I usually begin this fantastically fun author study near the end of the school year, but I'm just too excited to wait, so we may be reading some pigeon books early!  I have *FINALLY* finished and posted this little activity pack to my TpT store!  Here are just a few preview pages:

 The "Coffee Cup of Stay Up Late Excuses" to go along with Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late!

Which hot dog is your favorite graph (comes with large poster sized pieces, too) to go with The Pigeon Wants a Hot Dog!

Paper pigeon (and a duckling too!) in small and large sizes--for Reader's Theatre or stick puppets!

{Click here if you are interested!}

It's All About the Pigeon. {I Love Mo. 2nd Edition}

It's the last few weeks of first grade, which means it's time for little blue pigeons to cover the walls of our classroom!  And, in case you haven't seen my last post about Mo--you should know that I love him.  He writes the cutest, funniest, and sweetest books for children!  Mo {Willems} is author of the Pigeon books, Knuffle Bunny series, and Elephant and Piggie series!  If it is possible, I think my students love Mo even more than I do!  For the past week, they have been busy reading every Mo book on the shelf, performing reader's theater plays based on the books, writing and illustrating their very own pigeon books, designing new characters, laughing with friends as they buddy read a favorite story, and making connections between the books to themselves and to real life!   It is AWESOME.  

Here is our "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive..." class wall story!  

The kids read the wall story with a buddy using a fun pointer!

Below is our GIANT pigeon.  After this picture was taken, we decided to add descriptive word cards all around him.  One student described the pigeon as "extraordinary."  Great use of our first grade vocabulary!  :)

Okay, I know I said it was "All About the Pigeon", but I have to share this fun art and writing project we did after reading the Knuffle Bunny series!  In the Knuffle Bunny books, Mo uses real black and white photographs as the background setting for his pictures, and his characters are drawn as bright little cartoons that seem to pop off the page.  They are the neatest books!  I printed out some black and white photos and had the kids draw Trixie, her Daddy, and Knuffle Bunny and add them to the photos.  Some even added the pigeon, because Mo hides the pigeon at least once in all of his books.  In the one below, the pigeon is washing off in the fountain...

The author and illustrator below even used some of Mo's language that he uses in all of the Knuffle Bunny books--"Then...Trixie REALIZED...SOMETHING..."  So cute!

I love Mo.

Willems, that is. After returning to school from my 8 week maternity leave this past year, I found myself with 3 weeks left in the school year, and 22 kids absolutely ready for summer--which was, well...wild. I needed learning activities that would be meaningful, engaging, and get the kids excited about learning! That's when Mo and his trusty pigeon came in and made those last three weeks AWESOME! I have done many author studies before, but this one was by far the most excited I have seen my kiddos get! His books and illustrations are hilarious, and the kids loved making their own Pigeon and Elephant and Piggie books. They sat at the writing station working. Thats right. Working! They read independently, using funny voices and reading with expression, and they rolled with laughter as they buddy read the Elephant and Piggie books together! We read, laughed, created, wrote stories, and had a blast those last three weeks. Parents, I highly recommend adding Mo Willems books to your home library. I know we will be reading Mo at our house! Here are just a few of the fun activities we did with our author study...



We made our own pet pigeons!


The kids were inspired to write their own pigeon stories! This one was precious!


We made a graph! Would you let the pigeon drive the bus?


We made a character map of words to describe the pigeon! They surprised me with some of the words they used!

Visit his website for fun games, teacher's guides, and just "Mo" stuff! www.mowillems.com