My class loves Mo Willems’ books! They just can’t get enough. We have almost every book in the Pigeon series in our classroom. The wonderful thing about the Pigeon books is that the audience can interact with the Pigeon.
Since we do “Bookmaking” (as in the book Already Ready: Nurturing Writers in Preschool and Kindergarten) in our class all year, we spend time during the year talking about elements and features of the books we read. The Pigeon books work great for this: we talk about the difference between the thought bubbles and the talk bubbles; how Willems sometimes uses smaller squares on a page to show the Pigeon’s different actions; how Willems uses dark scribble lines or red eyes to show the Pigeon’s strong emotions, such as anger or sadness.
One day, my class decided to make their own Pigeon books. It was very interesting to see how they incorporated similar elements into their books. One of the great things about these books is that the Pigeon is so easy to draw. Here are some sample pages:
This picture is a female version of the Pigeon for a book in which a girl pigeon was needed:
This page shows how a child used the “talk bubble” element to show that the Pigeon is saying something:
On this page, a child drew the Pigeon’s different actions in smaller squares, like Willems does in some of the Pigeon books. The first square shows a talk bubble, the second square shows the Pigeon crying (because he doesn’t get what he wants), and the third square shows the Pigeon smiling (because he has thought of a new strategy to try to convince you to give him what he wants).
On this page, a child used the dark squiggle lines above the Pigeon’s head to show his emotions.
This page shows a thought bubble. We know this is a thought bubble rather than a talk bubble because of the 5 dots leading from the Pigeon’s head to the bubble. I thought it was neat how this child drew the Pigeon’s head peeking into the page.
The titles and themes the children came up with were a lot of fun and very creative. A few examples:
The Pigeon Wants to Wear Make-Up!
The Pigeon Wants to Wear a Diaper
Don’t Let the Pigeon Play with a Kid
Don’t Let the Pigeon Have Treasures
Pigeons Don’t Wear Shoes!
Don’t Let the Pigeon Have a Girlfriend
The Pigeon Wants to be President
The Pigeon Goes to the Moon
Don’t Let the Pigeon Go Dancing
Of course, as suggested in the book, Already Ready, the teacher needs to write books, too! My book was titled “Don’t Let the Pigeon Go to Pre-K”, in which the Pigeon tries to convince the audience to let him go to school and promises he will follow the rules and use good manners.
Pigeons Books by Mo Willems:
Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!
Don’t Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late!
The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog!
The Pigeon Wants a Puppy!
I hope your class has as much fun with these books as mine!
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My class loves the Pigeon books, as they call them. I just went to the library and cleared out nearly all of Mo Willems’ books. Some of the titles that the students came up with:
Don’t Let The Pigeon Drive the Truck!
Don’t Let the Pigeon Ride the Bicycle!
Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Rocketship!
We are about to begin our Mo Willems author study, and I know they’ll love it!!!
Thank you so much! My kindergarteners and I are having a Reading night on mo willems. Bless you for your ideas. !!!!
Thanks so much for the wonderful ideas regarding how to use Mo Willems books in the classroom. I taught Pre-K for the first time last year and we loved the Pigeon books. Can’t wait until I get back to school to get started! Thank-you for all of your hard work with your website and blog. I can’t tell you how much your ideas have helped me.
Thank you, Keryn!
I am using so many ideas from your website! Thank you for posting so many great math and literacy activities.