Mo Willem's Pigeon Books in Kindergarten

On the last day of school, at the very end of the day, I gathered all of my firsties around for one more read-aloud. Well, it was supposed to be one more. But, when it comes to Mo Willem's Pigeon books, well it's kind of like Lay's potato chips ~ you can't read just one! Even though we had read these books previously - me aloud and most of my kiddos individually - they were still so involved in the stories and enjoyed them immensely. I'm happy that was their last memory of their first grade year!

The Pigeon was on our mind because in April, Mo Willems came out with the 6th installment of the Pigeon series, The Pigeon Needs a Bath! If you haven't introduced the Pigeon to your classroom, you're going to want to, and if you already know and love the Pigeon, make sure you check out his hilarious bath time book! Look to your right and you'll see links to the Pigeon books on Amazon on the side bar, as well as some of Mo's other books - I've got almost every book he's written and I can say he hasn't written a bad one yet!

My kiddos loved this latest book and we did some fabulous writing - unfortunately I forgot to take pictures before I tucked those writing pieces into their cumulative folders. I was so tickled at the thought of them reading their stories in 4 years when they leave 5th grade that I forgot that I wanted to share them here too! Luckily I didn't forget to take pictures of our art:

In order to make these, we practiced drawing the Pigeon on our whiteboards first (Mo's tutorial is here) and then drew the Pigeon again on a plain piece of copy paper. Next we used the torn paper technique to cover our pigeons with blue and orange construction paper, and used a black marker to outline eyes, collars and wings. We added chenille stems for the legs and bent them to make the feet. I think they turned out super cute - and they were all so unique!

The best part about the Pigeon series of books is that they are so interactive - the kids respond to every single page. It is great to see them take on an authoritative role - and to hear them parrot the same phrases their parents probably use on them when they want to get out of going to bed or taking a bath!

The other great thing about the Pigeon series is that it lends itself to a class book so well! One year we made "Don't Let The Pigeon Be a Substitute Teacher" through Student Treasures:

I could go on and on, but why should I when I can send you over to Pigeon Presents, Mo's site that has a ton of cool stuff, including games, posters, coloring pages and teachers guides!