Don't Let the Pigeon Do Guided Drawing!!!!

Last week at the International Reading Association Conference, I  had the wonderful privilege and pleasure of hearing Mo Willems speak, since he was the keynote speaker for the last general session of the conference on Monday morning.




In case you are not familiar with his work, Mo Willems is the author of Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! and Don’t Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late!  He also writes the “Elephant and Piggie” books, such as We Are In A Book, and There Is A Bird On Your Head!  I had no idea that he was such a funny guy, but I guess I should have known!  His speech was a string of great one-liners that kept all of the teachers literally in stitches!


 
This is Mo Willems as he taught us how to draw his famous Pigeon.

At the end of his speech, this what he said to everyone in the room, “I invite you to infringe on my copyright.  PLEASE teach your students to draw the characters from my books!”  And then he taught us all to draw his famous pigeon.

 
This is the pigeon that I drew, under Mo’s direction!  LOL!

Mo told us that he had only JUST flown in from Paris, France.  His presentation lasted about thirty minutes or so, and I enjoyed every minute of it!  It was definitely the highlight of my weekend!  And then after that, everyone was lined up for a looooooooong way to purchase a signed book.  Now wouldn’t you LOVE to have a job like that?  I can only dream of such things!


 
Mo Willems gave us all a “Kodak Moment” and peeked out from behind his easel!


After hearing him speak, I just couldn’t wait to try out his guided drawing lesson of the pigeon with my students!  I had to figure out how to draw his elephant and piggie on my own.  But YOU can download my instructions FREE for the pigeon, piggie, and the elephant! 

Pigeon – Guided Drawing Download is here
Piggie – Guided Drawing Download is here
Elephant – Guided Drawing Download is here




To get ready, I read the children several of his books during the week I after I got back, and showed them a picture of Mo Willems that I took with my camera at the conference.  They love his books, so that was no problem at all!  As usual, there were several requests for me to “re-read” the books again and again.




After that, I passed out our class set of clipboards and the black markers that we use for guided drawing, and off we went!  First, I taught them to draw his famous pigeon just as Mo taught us in his presentation.




Then I found a page with a picture of his “Piggie” character in it in his book called, We Are In A Book! that I thought might be easy enough for us to draw.  I broke it down into very small steps and led the children through it one step at a time, as usual.  It’s amazing what children can do when you explain it to them in terms that they can understand!



I hope that you enjoy these lessons!  There are LOTS more free guided drawing lessons on my blog!  Just use the “Search This Blog” box to find more, or look for more on my Guided Drawing page on Pinterest!








----------------------------------
Follow me! Did you enjoy this post? Do me a favor and share it with your friends! And follow this blog by signing up for my email updates here, or follow on Bloglovin', or follow me on TPT! I'm also on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+ and YouTube, too! Don't forget to sign up for our email newsletter for special deals and promo codes that you won't find out about anywhere else.

Popular posts from this blog

Creepy Crayon: Free Craft Template!

Image
Today, I am going to give you a link to our free Creepy Crayon craft that we made to accompany the book Creepy Crayon by Aaron Reynolds!   Yay!  If you are a fan of Creepy Carrots and A Creepy Pair of Underwear ,  then you were probably just as excited as I was for the next book in the series, Creepy Crayon !  And so by popular demand, we have have included the Creepy Crayon craft here as a free download!  We have also included links to our other crafts for Aaron Reynold's creepy books, too.  They are such fun! The Illustrations are FAB! I definitely need to give a shout out to illustrator Peter Brown, whose wonderful illustrations play a huge part in the popularity of these books!  I love the way he made almost all of it in gray tones, except for the crayon, of course!  The illustrations really give the story a creepy, but friendly tone.  I know I'll be a Peter Brown fan forever! This is a photo of my Creepy Carrots crafts samples in my classroom before I retired. Check Ou
Read more

How to Help Children That Have a Hard Time Learning the Alphabet

Image
Is your child (or student) having a hard time learning the alphabet?  Are those letters just not "sticking?" Does your child seem to know a letter one day, and then forgets it the next day- or even just a few minutes later? In this post, I will share my most recently developed techniques for helping kids learn and remember the alphabet. Check Vision- Thoroughly! During the past 30 years as a teacher, I have tried many things for all of the different types of learners that I’ve had. One thing that I would highly suggest is that you have your child's eyes checked, just in case you have not yet done that. I know that most schools have their school nurses do this, but I would suggest that a nurse is really not an optometrist, nor is he/she an ophthalmologist. I wrote about one little guy with vision issues in my post, Tips for Teaching the Alphabet to Struggling Learners . In that post, I shared that I had been teaching one child that had had such a difficul
Read more

Fun with STEM: A "Punkin Chunkin" Catapult with Craft Sticks!

Image
In this post, I am going to tell you about a really FUN, seasonal STEM project that I did with my first and second graders:  they made "Punkin" Chunkin" catapults with craft sticks and masking tape!  Then we measured to see who's pumpkin went the farthest!  The "punkins" were actually orange pompoms, so we had to use our imaginations, but none of the children cared.  They had an absolute BLAST! For this fun activity, we invited our new fifth grade buddies to come in and give us a hand, but I really think that the first and second graders could have done it on their own as well.  So if you are thinking of doing this with your own young students alone and without the help of older students, go for it!  I think that Kindergartners could do it too, but I would do it in small groups so that I could help those that needed it. My inspiration for this came from many different child constructed catapults that I have seen on Pinterest- along with a
Read more

A Creepy Pair of Underwear Craftivity FREEBIE!

Image
Today I have a fun and easy craft based on a SUPER fun book by Aaron Reynolds called A Creepy Pair of Underwear .  After reading this book just ONCE with my class last year, it instantly became the class favorite, and I KNEW we had to make the project!  The illustrations by Peter Brown provided the perfect inspiration.  We are providing the master and instructions free for you today at the end of this post.  I hope you enjoy it as much as we did! If you are unfamiliar with this fun book,  you can read the synopsis here on Amazon, where you can also purchase the book .  Another great book to go with it is Creepy Carrots, by the same author and illustrator.  Both are instant Halloween classics, in my opinion!  Don't miss them! My teammate Jeff Pang is super creative, and he adapted the design from the book to make it into a craft that would be simple enough for the children to make into their own little Creepy Pair of Underwear!  So kudos to Jeff!  He seems to be able t
Read more

Teaching Kids to WRITE the Numbers! – FREE Number Poems!

Image
Teaching children to write the numbers  correctly can be very frustrating for early childhood teachers! Also, attempting to GRADE their writing can be equally TRICKY! What does a number written correctly look like, versus one that is not?  In this post, I am going to tell you how I teach my students to write the numbers. I’ve posted some examples of student work showing numbers that look correct and some that are not, in my opinion.  I explain under the photos why certain numbers “would pass” or not.  I also have some FREE number formation poems to share with you, plus a FREE download of a parent guide that explains what those correctly formed numbers should look like- and the incorrect ones! So it seems that every year, getting the children to write those numbers can be something like pulling teeth: it comes slowly, and getting them to just “CARE” seems to be half the battle!  Perhaps the reason for this is that we know that the most important learning in math comes from wo
Read more

Getting Control of a Very Difficult Class: TAKE TWO

Image
Have you ever had a class that just tried your patience day after day? Have you ever felt like you could walk away from teaching forever tomorrow, and be fine with it?  This is a repost of a piece that I wrote several years ago when I was teaching Kindergarten.  I'm now in second grade, and finding that I have many of the same problems!  Since I actually went back and read my own post again, I thought I would post it here for you again, too, with a few of my updated comments inserted in italics.  Hope it's helpful! This is the original post. ********** This year, I have one of the most challenging classes I have ever had. I am still working on training them to do what I want them to do, but I know that in the end, I will win! Meanwhile, we are spending a LOT of time on classroom management, modeling routines and procedures often. Here is a list of some classroom management tips and techniques that I have used successfully in Kindergarten, but I think that they would prob
Read more

Teaching Phoneme Segmentation: Separating Sounds in Words (Freebies!)

Image
Teaching children to pick out all of the phonemes (or sounds) in a given word can be tricky!  This requires good listening skills and well developed phonemic awareness in general.  For some children, mastering phoneme segmentation can seem just about impossible!  Here are some teaching tips that have worked for me in the past. *  The best advice I can give is to practice segmenting words with a designated MOTION for a short time every single day with your whole class.  Even just one or two minutes per day will help! Look for suggested motions on this post. There is also a downloadable list of words to use, plus a homework sheet that you can download here. Here is where you can get another  word list for practicing words with two, three, and four phonemes. And here is another post with lists of words with four, five, or six phonemes. *  Give kids beads to slide down a pipe cleaner as they segment the word.  I made these "Segmentation Sliders" out of p
Read more

An EASY Critical Thinking Game for K/1 Kids!

Image
Today I'm going to tell you about a fun and EASY game to help boost critical thinking skills in Kindergarten or First Graders!  I call it The Critical Thinking Comparison Game, because in it, the kids are simply comparing one thing to another and telling what they think are the similarities and differences between two objects.  Believe it or not, my first graders LOVE this game and often ask me if we can play it again!  I think they like it because the game makes them feel successful and "smart."  I have also played it with Kindergartners, and they enjoyed it, too! The Critical Thinking Comparison Game is really very easy to play!  All you need is a few questions like the ones below, and something for the children to color, just to keep them busy while they wait for a turn to talk.   ( I also used my Critical Thinking Comparison Cards as a visual aid, but you can certainly play it without them! ) Here is the type of question that I ask in this game: How
Read more

Creepy Carrots: A Free Halloween Craftivity!

Image
Here is another fun, FREE craft for kids based on the book Creepy Carrots by Aaron Reynolds, with SUPER FUN pictures by Peter Brown!  Did you enjoy the free Creepy Pair of Underwear craftivity from a few weeks ago?  Well  Creepy Carrots is the sort of like the companion book to A Creepy Pair of Underwear - and it is just as much fun as the other one! When I first got this book out and showed it to one of my students, he said, "Oh, I want this book!  I want it REAL BAD!!!! "  And that was before I had even READ it to them!  He had only just looked at the cover !  LOL! When I found out about these books last year, it was right before Halloween, so it was really too late to share the ideas that my teammate Jeff and I developed.  We made a creepy pair of underwear on Halloween Day at school, but did not get a chance to do the carrots. So this year, we got right on it!  I hope it's not too late for you to take advantage of using this project this year!
Read more

Teaching CVC Words: What to Do When They Are STILL NOT GETTING IT

Image
In this post, I am going to tell you several new things to try with children that just can't seem to sound out words, even after MANY different interventions have been tried!  So for those little sweeties that are "just plain stuck" on the road to learning to read, here are a few more things to try or to think about.  The inspiration for this post came from the question from a reader below.  Hope it is helpful! Question: I really enjoy using your songs and activity ideas in my kindergarten classroom each day. I wanted to seek your advice for a couple of my readers. They have phonemic awareness skills in place and can segment a CVC word independently, but they are unable to blend it into the word independently. If I segment the word for them, they can blend it just fine. I use the Elkonin boxes, manipulatives, etc. to help, but still they are not really making progress and they are the only ones who are unable to demonstrate this skill in my class. I would love to
Read more