don't let the pigeon...

I didn't discover Mo Willems until Knuffle Bunny came along.  I wasn't even a huge Pigeon fan until this year.  Yup...it took me until the year 2013 to fully back Mo Willems.   

Please, Mo Willems, take this as a personal apology.  I made a huge mistake.  Pigeon is amazing.  

It started with this video which I found on Pinterest (another obsession which will get it's own post soon).

My 1st grade students fell in love with it.  They learned book care and fell for this character.  I'll be honest, this is when I first read Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems.  And then I found this video...

Omygosh.  The kids went NUTS.  So I read the rest of the books.  And then read them to my students.  And they exploded.  With excitement.  With giggles.  With desire to share out in COMPLETE SENTENCES (with the help of these Read a loud Sentence Starters).  And, with the inspiration to WRITE IN COMPLETE SENTENCES.  See these examples:

"Don't let the pigeon fly in the library with the books."

"Don't let the pigeon eat cotton candy bcause it is somebody else's."

"Don't let the pigeon play video games."

Other favorites:  "Don't let the pigeon eat grapes."  "Don't let the pigeon touch the flowers."  "Don't let the pigeon watch tv."  I love how random these guys are.   If they struggled to come up with an idea I asked them what their favorite thing to do was.  This got the best responses, and next year is how I'm going to start.  I got: "Don't let the pigeon eat cookies."  "Don't let the pigeon play Angry Birds."  "Don't let the pigeon make a mess."  "Don't let the pigeon play on the swings."  First grade has been one of my harder groups this year, and this activity alone has made me fall in love with them all.

These are 1st graders.  Half of the students are NOT native English learners (hence the translations provided in the caption)...  I am beyond proud of these students.  I've been showing off their work to ANYONE I can, and now you are the latest.  I'll be emailing them to Mo Willems once they are done.  I'm not kidding.

--A very happy Book Lady