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!