On of my favorite things to hear is children giggling. Even thinking about kids laughing and chuckling makes you smile, no?! An author study that I love to do in my classroom, that ALWAYS brings lots of giggles, is Mo Willems. Reading one of Mo Willems' books is entertaining no matter how old you are. {Sometimes I probably think the books are even more funny than my students do!} A few weeks ago I posted this picture on instagram. My class was having a little BIG issue with using the restroom correctly {YUCK}, so I went to the library and checked out this book. Who knew a book with the word "pee" in the title could work "Bathroom Miracles"!? :) Thank you Mr. Willems. Time to Pee! After reading the "Pee Book" {as it was referred to by my students} my kids were so excited to start our Mo Willems Author Study. We mastered many of our ELA standards, just by focusing on this one author. Mo Willems makes reading fun! Here are some of the activities that we did... We learned all about Mo Willems and examined what he does as an author and illustrator. As we worked through this unit we tried to be an author and illustrator just like him. We examined characters in Mo Willems' books and compared their adventures and problems in the stories. Of course one of our favorite characters was Knuffle Bunny! Pigeon was a big hit too! The kids loved changing their voices while they were reading to sound just like Pigeon. Probably one of the favorite characters that my students got to know was Wilbur from the book Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed. They were so creative when they got to dress their own Naked Mole Rat! Piggie and Elephant {my personal favorite Mo Willems' characters} were a huge hit! The students are still selecting these books for in their independent reading book baskets! If you don't have Mo Willems books in your classroom library...they are a MUST! I recommend purchasing hardcover ones, they will be read over and over again--getting lots of wear and tear! As we read Mo Willems books we discovered that as an author he uses his characters to teach us lessons. Even though we are done with this unit, my students still refer to books and characters that we read during our author study. I will randomly hear, "You should share like Piggie." or "I am a leader like Wilbur." Melts my heart! :) If you are interested in doing a Mo Willems Author Study, I recommend this unit to you... Included in the unit is all the chart parts, printables and crafts shown in this post! Click on the picture or HERE to go check it out! The best part of Mo Willems' books are the joy and fun that he brings to reading...something that is so important as we develop our students as "Reading Lovers"! Here is a little FREEBIE to help you celebrate this amazing author!
A blog about teaching, lessons, decor, organizing, interactive notebooks, literacy stations, math stations, classroom set up, etc...
This month marks the start of our Books in a Series unit. In reader's workshop students select a series of their choice to explore in book clubs, while also creating and writing adventures about a realistic fiction character of their own in writer's workshop. What better author to use for mentor texts than the one and only, Mo Willems?! His work is dreamy (insert heart eye emoji here)! This post contains affiliate links for your shopping convenience. I consistently choose his work each year to guide my students to explore all the potential there is with author's craft of such few words and pictures. In reader's workshop I use the Elephant and Piggie series during my mini-lessons and look to the Pigeon series in shared reading. As a culminating project, we make these sweet Pigeon headbands that make you go googley eyed at the first sight of them! I had seen them on students while watching Mo Willems speak at an elementary school at the end of one of the Knuffle Bunny DVDs. I am having a hard time locating where you can find the DVD. I took it out at my local library. You can find Knuffle Bunny, Knuffle Bunny Too, and Knuffle Bunny Free on Amazon by clicking the book titles. With this particular craft, I chose to precut the pieces for the students. I got very lucky that the blue paper and blue sentence strips that I had laying around happened to be the very same shade. Unfortunately I do not happen to know the brand of either. However, I have selected two online that I believe to be the closest match. The bright blue in the Astrobrights "bright" assortment pack gives you a great option! Students glued all the pieces for the Pigeon face. Once they were finished gluing, they came to me to assemble the "neck and body." I chose to staple these pieces in effort to save time. One staple to attach two white strips to the head. Then I separated the strips and attached one to each side of the "body." One tip- the longer the white strip, the more likely the pigeon head will lean to one side. I chose to keep them short to prevent this from happening! The body was a blue sentence strip. I did my best to match up the sentence strip color and found this multicolor neon pack from Carson Dellosa on Amazon. I measured each students head before attaching the Pigeon head. I have also seen teachers incorporating curriculum needs by adding writing to the sentence strip. Student can practice adding dialogue tags to what Pigeon says in his speech bubbles. This is the perfect way to incorporate dialogue punctuation as well. Then students can write the whole sentence including the dialogue tag on their sentence strip. Click each Pigeon book title to grab yourself a copy! The Pigeon Wants a Puppy Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus The Pigeon Needs a Bath The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late The Duckling Gets a Cookie!?
Mo Willems Author study: Book-based unit study. Find book list and activities, meet the author, and download an 8 page free printable pack.
Just an update on the homework posts. I've updated the last post - http://www.teachingmaddeness.com/2014/07/im-lovin-homework-thats-wrap-mini-series.html - with my MONSTER Folder Overview as a free download. I also had a ton of requests for the version of the MONSTER folder cover that was shown in my picture so that will be up in our shop this week! With back to school coming soon, I thought I would round up some of my favorite freebies I've offered here on my blog to make sure you haven't missed out on any of them! My students LOVE these Animal Goodbye Signs. There are 35 different signs. I laminated them all and post one by our classroom door each week of the school year. As students leave in the afternoons, they say the first part (ex. "Better Shake") and then the rest of the class responds with the second part (ex. "Rattlesnake"). They EAT.IT.UP! If I forget to change it one week, they are all over it. :) This is a pack of my favorite Attention-Getters! I've even provided tips on how and when I use them. I LOVE an author study! I "map out" (loosely) my read-alouds for the year on my planning calendar so I have an idea of what I want to read when. I include one chapter book per month. The rest of the month's read-aloud time is devoted to a particular author. This gives me the best of BOTH worlds. An opportunity to share those GREAT can't-wait-to-read-the-next-chaper-to-find-out-what's-going-to-happen BOOKS, as well as digging into an author's craft. When we get to our author-of-the-month, I like to provide my students with a little background on the author. They love to know that he/she used to make books with paper and yarn as a child, or that he/she couldn't read until the fifth grade, or that he/she NEVER thought they would grow up to write books! This pack was so popular, that I did ANOTHER Freebie Pack! 2nd Grade Common Core Essential Questions for ELA...(53 pages) 2nd Grade Common Core Essential Questions for Math...(27 pages) Sorry, I don't have EQs for any other grades. I hope you can use these Forever Freebies in your classroom this year. If you like them, spread the word so other teachers can come snatch them up! :)
A blog about teaching, lessons, decor, organizing, interactive notebooks, literacy stations, math stations, classroom set up, etc...
Nothing motivates my students like reading book after book from the same beloved author. Mo Willems, David Shannon, Kevin Henkes, Ezra Jack Keats, Jan Brett, and Tomie DePaola are just a few of our favorite authors. I absolutely LOVE doing author studies with my students. For one, we get to know authors and understand their work on a much deeper level. When the students connect to the writer, they love the stories even more! When I talk about doing author studies, some people seem to think it’s a big complicated
Mo Willems Activities and Crafts for kids! Mo Willems infuses humor kids love with an artistic simplicity that seems deceptively easy.
Author Study Folders can be found by clicking the photo below! I went to a conference with Katie Wood Ray this summer...and I learned SO many amazing things that helped me see writing workshop in a new light. One of my favorite things I learned was that it is super important that your students realize that authors are real people who make books just like them. She taught me to pay CLOSE attention to dedication pages, about the author blurbs, and book jacket information. Me and Katie Wood Ray (I love this book!) I've done that this year (along with letting my kindergarteners listen to lots of author interviews online) and I've been AMAZED at the fact that these kindergarteners know these authors so well, and feel like they are in good company when they are making books during workshop. SO...last year, I did tons of author studies. I also made these information folders so my students could learn about the authors we were reading about. This year, I re-made them and wanted them to be really kid-friendly. My K babies won't even let me read an author book unless this folder is on the easel! And the most HILARIOUS part is at the end of a read aloud- my students LITERALLY say, "Thanks Mo, (Willems) that was a great story." Ha! The best part is after you study and author and want to "retire" them to a basket, these folders make a great way to label the basket so your kiddos know where to put books when they are done! So, I thought I'd create some folders for tons of authors that are fun to study. All you need is a file folder! I'm giving away Mo for free but you'll find them in my stores for only $1.00 per author. (After the study, we fill discuss traits that the author has and record them together) (Written in Vis-a-Vis Markers so I can use them year-to year) Here are a list of the authors I plan to cover: (I am willing to take requests if you study an author that isn't listed below- just leave me a comment!) *Mo Willems *David Shannon *Dr. Seuss *Helen Lester *Laura Numeroff *Jan Brett *Kevin Henkes *Leo Lionni *Eric Carle *Donald Crews *Ezra Jack Keats *Cynthia Rylant *Doreen Cronin *The Wood (Don & Audrey) *Amy Krouse Rosenthal *Jack Prelutsky * Robert Munsch * Mem Fox * Marc Brown * Lois Elhert *Gail Gibbons *Angela Johnson Here is a FREE Mo Willems Folder Kit! All you have to do is cut out the pages and glue them on a funky-fresh file folder! (click the photo below) (scribd document) (click on Trixie for the Google Docs Upload-make sure to "Download Original to get the pretty blue border around it!)
Next month marks the start of our Books in a Series unit. In reader's workshop students select a series of their choice to explore in book clubs, while also creating and writing adventures about a realistic fiction character of their own in writer's workshop. What better author to use for mentor texts than the one and only, Mo Willems?! His work is dreamy (insert heart eye emoji here)! This post contains affiliate links for your shopping convenience. I consistently choose his work each year to guide my students to explore all the potential there is with author's craft of such few words and pictures. In reader's workshop I use the Elephant and Piggie series during my mini-lessons and look to the Pigeon series in shared reading. As a culminating project, we make these sweet Pigeon headbands that make you go googley eyed at the first sight of them! I had seen them on students while watching Mo Willems speak at an elementary school at the end of one of the Knuffle Bunny DVDs. I am having a hard time locating where you can find the DVD. I took it out at my local library. You can find Knuffle Bunny, Knuffle Bunny Too, and Knuffle Bunny Free on Amazon by clicking the book titles. With this particular craft, I chose to precut the pieces for the students. I got very lucky that the blue paper and blue sentence strips that I had laying around happened to be the very same shade. Unfortunately I do not happen to know the brand of either. However, I have selected two online that I believe to be the closest match. The bright blue in the Astrobrights "bright" assortment pack gives you a great option! Students glued all the pieces for the Pigeon face. Once they were finished gluing, they came to me to assemble the "neck and body." I chose to staple these pieces in effort to save time. One staple to attach two white strips to the head. Then I separated the strips and attached one to each side of the "body." One tip- the longer the white strip, the more likely the pigeon head will lean to one side. I chose to keep them short to prevent this from happening! The body was a blue sentence strip. I did my best to match up the sentence strip color and found this multicolor neon pack from Carson Dellosa on Amazon. I measured each students head before attaching the Pigeon head. I have also seen teachers incorporating curriculum needs by adding writing to the sentence strip. Student can practice adding dialogue tags to what Pigeon says in his speech bubbles. This is the perfect way to incorporate dialogue punctuation as well. Then students can write the whole sentence including the dialogue tag on their sentence strip. Click each Pigeon book title to grab yourself a copy! The Pigeon Wants a Puppy Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus The Pigeon Needs a Bath The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late The Duckling Gets a Cookie!?
Kids learn to spell their names with ice cream cone puzzles.
Lunch Doodles with Mo Willems is the perfect activity to add to your autistic child's home program schedule! Build fine motor skills and have fun!
FREE printables to go along with the book series Elephant and Piggie by Mo Willems. Preschool and kindergarten kids will have a blast learning with these 2 lovable friends! Practice early math and literacy skills, alphabet, counting, patterns, scissor skills and more!
On of my favorite things to hear is children giggling. Even thinking about kids laughing and chuckling makes you smile, no?! An author study that I love to do in my classroom, that ALWAYS brings lots of giggles, is Mo Willems. Reading one of Mo Willems' books is entertaining no matter how old you are. {Sometimes I probably think the books are even more funny than my students do!} A few weeks ago I posted this picture on instagram. My class was having a little BIG issue with using the restroom correctly {YUCK}, so I went to the library and checked out this book. Who knew a book with the word "pee" in the title could work "Bathroom Miracles"!? :) Thank you Mr. Willems. Time to Pee! After reading the "Pee Book" {as it was referred to by my students} my kids were so excited to start our Mo Willems Author Study. We mastered many of our ELA standards, just by focusing on this one author. Mo Willems makes reading fun! Here are some of the activities that we did... We learned all about Mo Willems and examined what he does as an author and illustrator. As we worked through this unit we tried to be an author and illustrator just like him. We examined characters in Mo Willems' books and compared their adventures and problems in the stories. Of course one of our favorite characters was Knuffle Bunny! Pigeon was a big hit too! The kids loved changing their voices while they were reading to sound just like Pigeon. Probably one of the favorite characters that my students got to know was Wilbur from the book Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed. They were so creative when they got to dress their own Naked Mole Rat! Piggie and Elephant {my personal favorite Mo Willems' characters} were a huge hit! The students are still selecting these books for in their independent reading book baskets! If you don't have Mo Willems books in your classroom library...they are a MUST! I recommend purchasing hardcover ones, they will be read over and over again--getting lots of wear and tear! As we read Mo Willems books we discovered that as an author he uses his characters to teach us lessons. Even though we are done with this unit, my students still refer to books and characters that we read during our author study. I will randomly hear, "You should share like Piggie." or "I am a leader like Wilbur." Melts my heart! :) If you are interested in doing a Mo Willems Author Study, I recommend this unit to you... Included in the unit is all the chart parts, printables and crafts shown in this post! Click on the picture or HERE to go check it out! The best part of Mo Willems' books are the joy and fun that he brings to reading...something that is so important as we develop our students as "Reading Lovers"! Here is a little FREEBIE to help you celebrate this amazing author!
A blog about teaching, lessons, decor, organizing, interactive notebooks, literacy stations, math stations, classroom set up, etc...
Stop on by my blog to grab a fun freebie to use with Mo Willems Pigeon books. Since poor Pigeon doesn’t really get what he wants (most of the time anyway) this graphic organizer works beautifully for it! Click {HERE} to grab your copy! Have a great day! Angie You Might Also Like:Free Printable Graphic ... Read More about Somebody, Wanted, But, So for Pigeon Books!
Me and 80+ blog buddies got together to bring you 80+ DIY Halloween costumes, including my Elephant and Piggie Costumes. I'm teaming up with Jamie Dorobek and her handmade Halloween costume site, Really Awesome Costumes to bring y'all tons of easy ideas to craft up DIY Halloween costumes for everyone including your pets, family costumes, and even a trunk or treat idea! Along with my Elephant and Piggie Costumes, I'm sharing 88+ more really awesome handmade costume ideas from talented bloggers everywhere! So let me say, I am crazy... Let me finish. I am crazy about Halloween costumes. I also quite enjoy themed costumes for Halloween. This year we went with costumes that are based on book characters. Our family LOVES the Elephant and Piggie books by Mo Willems. Have you read those books? Oh my word, they are amazing, hilarious, and all together quite fantastic. We have almost all of them, and we read them all the time. All. The. Time. So it was a no brainer on our Halloween O' Book Characters to dress the youngest two as Gerald the Elephant and Piggie for this Halloween. Another reason it seemed destined to dress them as Elephant and Piggie is because Gerald, the Elephant, wears glasses and Little wears glasses. It was meant to be. For both of the costumes I started with Butterick Pattern 3238. I used micro fleece. I altered the tail, the ears, and omitted the elastic in both costumes. The tails and ears are both made to mimic the book characters themselves. I followed then construction instructions I just changed the shapes. The were a few components not made from the pattern. For Gerald, I added the toenails in a lighter fleece. I cut 3 half circles for each "leg". That was 12 total. Then I sewed them on to the edge of the sleeves and the end of the splats (shoe covers). I also made a simple trunk by sewing a tube, filling it with batting and then attaching it to a piece of fleece. Then I sewed elastic to the ends of the fleece.. For sweet little Piggie, I only added a cute but ridiculously large piggy snout. I sewed to black felt slits to the front of an oval piece of fleece. Then I attached a piece of elastic. Did I mention anything about the cuteness? Elephant and Piggie are a pretty good start to our Halloween O' Book Characters. And now it's time for tons more DIY Halloween costume inspiration! Join in on the BLOG HOP! Click on the links below each collage to get the detailed instructions about how to make the costume pictured, just like mine above. Don't forget to follow the Handamde Halloween Costumes Pinterest Board for even more DIY costume greatness! 1. Handmade Baby Hamburger Costume 2. DIY Baby Game Boy Costume 3. DIY Minecraft Steve Costume 4. Football Brothers Halloween Costumes with DIY Pads and Onesie 5. Star Trek Halloween Costume for Kids 6. A Bee and Her Keeper 7. No Sew Magician Costume 8. Flint Lockwood Costume 9. Pinocchio 10. Marty McFly 11. Princess Wedding Dress Costume 12. Handmade Lalaloopsy Doll Costume 13. Homemade Toothless Costume 14. DIY Mermaid For Less Than $20 (No-Sew Option) 15. Easy Tinker Bell Costume 16. Mario and Luigi Go Kart Costumes 17. Dog The Bounty Hunter and Beth 18. Family Monsters University Costumes 19. Scooby Doo family costumes 20. DIY Storm Cloud Costume 21. Cheap and Easy DIY Spider Costume 22. Easy Tin Man Costume 23. No Sew Bee Costume 24. Planet Halloween Costumes 25. DIY Cheshire Cat Costume 26. DIY Instagram Board 27. Elsa crown 28. Dog Collar Ruffles 29. DIY Pineapple Baby Costume 30. DIY Lego Movie Costume 31. Weeping Angel Costume 32. Disney Planes Costume: Dipper 33. Easy Pirate Costume 34. Easy Costume Idea - Renaissance Girl 35. 10 Minute Homemade Jellyfish Costume 36. DIY Cat Costume 37. Lucy And Ricky Costumes 38. Easy Frozen Costumes (Carrisa!!) 39. Easy Greek Goddess Costume 40. DIY Family Willy Wonka Costumes 41. DIY No Sew Maleficent Costume 42. No Sew Pineapple Halloween Costume 43. Graveyard Bean Bag Toss: Trunk or Treat Car Costume 44. DIY Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Costumes 45. DIY Raccoon Costume with Printable Mask 46. Easy WildStyle Lego Movie Costume 47. Simple Hello Kitty Costume 48. No Sew Minnie Mouse Costume 49. DIY Inspector Gadget and Penny Costumes 50. DIY Frozen Elsa Dress Baby Edition 51. Fairy Princess Dog Costume 52. DIY Hashtag Halloween Costume 53. Toddler or Baby Egg Costume 54. Easy No Sew Olaf Costume 55. DIY Baymax Costume 56. DIY Tooth Fairy Costume 57. Baby Short Stack Pancake Costume 58. Elephant and Piggie Halloween Costumes 59. Instagram Halloween Costume 60. Peter Pan & Mr. Smee Halloween Costume 61. Wildstyle Costume from the Lego Movie 62. Fred and Wilma Couples Costume 63. Viking Family Costumes 64. DIY Cruella de Vil Costume for a child 65. Disney Frozen Olaf Halloween Treat Bucket 66. How to Make a Minecraft Steve Head 67. DIY Harry Potter Costume 68. DIY Duck Dynasty Costumes 69. No Sew Cupcake Baker Halloween Costume 70. DIY Skunk Mask 71. Ghostbusters Proton Pack DIY 72. Frozen Anna Costume Tutorial 73. Candy Corn Costume 74. Paw Patrol Halloween Costume 75. No Sew Toothless Dragon Costume 76. DIY Robot Costume 77. Wonder Woman Costume 78. Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Costume 79. Thrifted Gentleman Spy DIY Halloween Costume 80. DIY Boy Garden Gnome Costume 81. Group Costume: Bob Ross, Happy Tree, & Squirrel 82. DIY Blues Brothers Costumes 83. Snow White Costume 84. Peacock Princess Costume 85. Scarecrow Costume 86. Easy Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Costume 87. Handmade Teddy Bear Costume 88. Princess Elsa and the Spy Kid 89. DIY Baby Koala costume What handmade costume ideas did you love the most?! Be sure to click over to get the costume instructions, pin the costume, and let them know you love it! Also, follow the Handmade Halloween Costume board on Pinterest! Follow Jamie Dorobek {C.R.A.F.T.}'s board “Handmade Halloween Costumes” on Pinterest. If you are stopping by from the C.R.A.F.T Costume Blog Hop, welcome! Stay around and check out some of my other Halloween Costume Ideas. Phineas and Ferb Halloween Star Wars Halloween Superhero Halloween Toy Story Halloween Have I mentioned I rather like themed Halloween? Haha. Well I do. Thanks for stopping by and checking out our first Halloween O' Book Characters. Keep checking back to find out what Oldest and Middle are going to be. Follow along with Just Another Day in Paradise Instagram Facebook Pinterest
Are you looking for a way to introduce an author study to your students? These profile posters are a guided research platform to assists students in looking for key information about famous children's authors. This guided research activity is on Mo Williams These activities can be used as stand alone research activities, or to supplement any ELA curriculum. In addition to the profile sheets, teachers have the option of assigning an extension of having the students write a biographical sketch with their research. This activity is also available in a bundle with 20 other loved children's authors Bundle of All 21 Author Studies Guided Research Activities Included in this purchase: A 3-page Profile Poster report for students to record their research Writing paper for the subject of the report An easy to use Sources page for students to record as they research Student instructions on writing a biographical sketch Make sure to follow Red Stick Teaching Materials (click the green star by my name) to be the first to know of new products and freebies as they become available! To earn TPT credits towards future purchases, make sure to leave feedback on all purchases
Mo Willems Activities and Crafts for kids! Mo Willems infuses humor kids love with an artistic simplicity that seems deceptively easy.
Slice of Life Challenge: Day two! My students and I have been studying Mo Willems during the month of February. We have really enjoyed reading about our new friends: Elephant and Piggy, Pigeon, Knuffle Bunny and Trixie, Amanda and her Alligator, Leonardo, Edwina, the whole gang! Each day as I finish reading a new story or an old favorite I ask my students, "What did you notice today?" And each day I am blown away by the insightful answers that I hear. Now that we have read all the Mo Willems books that our school library owns (time to make a trip to the local city library now!), we are looking at his books as writers. Again, when I ask the kids what they notice, they amaze me! With all the great ideas and wonderful things they are noticing...it was time for a chart. Last week we took all the great things we had learned from Mo and turned it into a chart for our wall. My students have not only begun to point out the things we learned from Mo in other books, but they have also started trying to include them in their own writing! I have been a fan of author studies for a while now, but the power of the author study this year has reached new levels! I can't wait to see what happens next!
Do you LOVE Pigeon?! Do your kids LOVE Pigeon?! I cannot get enough of that silly pigeon and my kids agree. He is a read-aloud favorite and my kids begggg for me to read a pigeon book at least once a day! I’m not a pigeon-only type of gal either. I think all three Knuffle […]
Do you LOVE Pigeon?! Do your kids LOVE Pigeon?! I cannot get enough of that silly pigeon and my kids agree. He is a read-aloud favorite and my kids begggg for me to read a pigeon book at least once a day! I’m not a pigeon-only type of gal either. I think all three Knuffle […]
On of my favorite things to hear is children giggling. Even thinking about kids laughing and chuckling makes you smile, no?! An author study that I love to do in my classroom, that ALWAYS brings lots of giggles, is Mo Willems. Reading one of Mo Willems' books is entertaining no matter how old you are. {Sometimes I probably think the books are even more funny than my students do!} A few weeks ago I posted this picture on instagram. My class was having a little BIG issue with using the restroom correctly {YUCK}, so I went to the library and checked out this book. Who knew a book with the word "pee" in the title could work "Bathroom Miracles"!? :) Thank you Mr. Willems. Time to Pee! After reading the "Pee Book" {as it was referred to by my students} my kids were so excited to start our Mo Willems Author Study. We mastered many of our ELA standards, just by focusing on this one author. Mo Willems makes reading fun! Here are some of the activities that we did... We learned all about Mo Willems and examined what he does as an author and illustrator. As we worked through this unit we tried to be an author and illustrator just like him. We examined characters in Mo Willems' books and compared their adventures and problems in the stories. Of course one of our favorite characters was Knuffle Bunny! Pigeon was a big hit too! The kids loved changing their voices while they were reading to sound just like Pigeon. Probably one of the favorite characters that my students got to know was Wilbur from the book Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed. They were so creative when they got to dress their own Naked Mole Rat! Piggie and Elephant {my personal favorite Mo Willems' characters} were a huge hit! The students are still selecting these books for in their independent reading book baskets! If you don't have Mo Willems books in your classroom library...they are a MUST! I recommend purchasing hardcover ones, they will be read over and over again--getting lots of wear and tear! As we read Mo Willems books we discovered that as an author he uses his characters to teach us lessons. Even though we are done with this unit, my students still refer to books and characters that we read during our author study. I will randomly hear, "You should share like Piggie." or "I am a leader like Wilbur." Melts my heart! :) If you are interested in doing a Mo Willems Author Study, I recommend this unit to you... Included in the unit is all the chart parts, printables and crafts shown in this post! Click on the picture or HERE to go check it out! The best part of Mo Willems' books are the joy and fun that he brings to reading...something that is so important as we develop our students as "Reading Lovers"! Here is a little FREEBIE to help you celebrate this amazing author!
Benefits of an Author Study and how to create one in 5 simple steps. Plus a free printable pack appropriate for elementary to middle grades.
Mo Willems is extraordinary! The children absolutely LOVE studying him and reading his books over and over again. http://www.authorsasheroes.org/2013/01/mo-willems-author-study.html Above is an example of the culminating Mo Willems "We Can" anchor chart. This is the last thing created at the end of an author study. Prior to this we read aloud all of the books whole group and created the "we noticed" chart. (See Keiko Kasza, Emily Gravett, or Steven Layne for an example) After studying an author whole group, we always have fun with our author during Literacy Stations or independent reading/writing time. Below are some of the activities that we did to reinforce reading and writing skills. Click here for the Choiceboard of the four activities we created. Some students chose to write their own Pigeon comic story. We talked about how we can infer the pigeons feelings by the picture and word clues. We also noticed that the pigeon often wanted something in each of the stories. We brainstormed other things that he could want and created stories and mini comic books like Mo Willems. Click here for the Pigeon Has Many Feelings reproducible . This is an example of trying to draw the pigeon showing many different emotions. We also practiced reading the Piggie and Elephant books with great expression using the popsicle stick puppets. Writing a letter to Mo Willems telling him about our favorite book was also a big hit! Click here for the letter template to Mo Willems. WE LOVE MO WILLEMS!!!
Teach it with Class
Look who really …… really wants to come to kindergarten. But the teacher does not think the pigeon is ready yet. Pleas...
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...
5-1/2" x 8-1/2". 50/pkg.Art © Mo Willems. ELEPHANT & PIGGIE is a trademark of The Mo Willems Studio, Inc.
Here's a simple math game you can use as a book-tivity with any of the Pigeon books by Mo Willems. The newest Pigeon book was released today, April 1st!
My Growing Writers inspire me daily! We learned how to be craft detectives - paying careful attention to the choices that authors and ...
On of my favorite things to hear is children giggling. Even thinking about kids laughing and chuckling makes you smile, no?! An author study that I love to do in my classroom, that ALWAYS brings lots of giggles, is Mo Willems. Reading one of Mo Willems' books is entertaining no matter how old you are. {Sometimes I probably think the books are even more funny than my students do!} A few weeks ago I posted this picture on instagram. My class was having a little BIG issue with using the restroom correctly {YUCK}, so I went to the library and checked out this book. Who knew a book with the word "pee" in the title could work "Bathroom Miracles"!? :) Thank you Mr. Willems. Time to Pee! After reading the "Pee Book" {as it was referred to by my students} my kids were so excited to start our Mo Willems Author Study. We mastered many of our ELA standards, just by focusing on this one author. Mo Willems makes reading fun! Here are some of the activities that we did... We learned all about Mo Willems and examined what he does as an author and illustrator. As we worked through this unit we tried to be an author and illustrator just like him. We examined characters in Mo Willems' books and compared their adventures and problems in the stories. Of course one of our favorite characters was Knuffle Bunny! Pigeon was a big hit too! The kids loved changing their voices while they were reading to sound just like Pigeon. Probably one of the favorite characters that my students got to know was Wilbur from the book Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed. They were so creative when they got to dress their own Naked Mole Rat! Piggie and Elephant {my personal favorite Mo Willems' characters} were a huge hit! The students are still selecting these books for in their independent reading book baskets! If you don't have Mo Willems books in your classroom library...they are a MUST! I recommend purchasing hardcover ones, they will be read over and over again--getting lots of wear and tear! As we read Mo Willems books we discovered that as an author he uses his characters to teach us lessons. Even though we are done with this unit, my students still refer to books and characters that we read during our author study. I will randomly hear, "You should share like Piggie." or "I am a leader like Wilbur." Melts my heart! :) If you are interested in doing a Mo Willems Author Study, I recommend this unit to you... Included in the unit is all the chart parts, printables and crafts shown in this post! Click on the picture or HERE to go check it out! The best part of Mo Willems' books are the joy and fun that he brings to reading...something that is so important as we develop our students as "Reading Lovers"! Here is a little FREEBIE to help you celebrate this amazing author!
A blog about teaching, lessons, decor, organizing, interactive notebooks, literacy stations, math stations, classroom set up, etc...
We have been busy working on an author study on Mo Willems {he's famous for the pigeon books}. My little firsties fell in love with his books after we read Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late! This one book led my little readers asking for more Mo Willems books and how could I deny them? So...we read every Mo Willems book from the school's library and read them again and again and again. We compared characters and author's purpose among the books. After reading Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late!, we read Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, and The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog. I came across this helpful drawing tool from an old issue of Time for Kids magazine {glad I saved it!} it helped the kiddos perfect their pigeon illustrations {so easy, by the way!} OK, now I can't find the picture of the drawing tool from Time for Kids {as soon as I find it, I will make a link for you...sorry about that.} Here are a few pigeons drawn by my little firsties... {love} {love} {love} So, then my kiddos got busy writing a new version of Don't the Pigeon... {they did such an awesome job!} We actually turned their writing into talking pictures using the site, blabberize {this is a great tool for digital storytelling and it's free!} If you want to see or hear our talking pigeons, visit our classroom blog HERE Mo Willems has an offical website with some super duper games and activities, visit the Mo Willems site. I scored big when I came across this little number at This and That Library blog... {click on the image to make pigeons out of cardboard tubes/rolls} {Here is an example along with two DVDs that went along perfectly with our study.} Although, Mo Willems is famous for his pigeon books, he also writes many others. The next two characters Piggie and Gerald {the elephant} were also loved by my firsties. {You have to check out the Piggie and Elephant Dance Game...your kids will love it!} Oh, one more pigeon art goodie...pigeon hats...love them!! And lastly, I found two great files to use at the SMART Exchange to use on the SMARTBoard...I love free stuff!
Do you LOVE Pigeon?! Do your kids LOVE Pigeon?! I cannot get enough of that silly pigeon and my kids agree. He is a read-aloud favorite and my kids begggg for me to read a pigeon book at least once a day! I’m not a pigeon-only type of gal either. I think all three Knuffle […]
