Don’t Let the Pigeon – a cute Language Arts Activity

Here’s a cute little Language Arts activity I just had to share with you.

My student’s love

Mo Willem’s

work.

One of their absolute favorites is

Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!

They can’t get enough of Mo Willem’s comic book style.

Imagine my surprise when I found this cute little resource on Mo Willem’s own website.

http://www.mowillems.com/

In this resource are some great instructions on how to draw the Pigeon

LESSON 1

the cover

I told the kids they we each going to make their own Pigeon comic book.

I showed my kids how to draw the parts of the pigeon, step-by-step.

First they drew the pigeon on sky-blue construction paper.  I gave them a piece that was 4 1/2 inches by 6 inches.  They glued it on grey paper which was cut to 4 1/2 by 6 inches.  This will become the book cover.  Next they added the white eye and strip from white paper and the beak from yellow paper.  They used a marker or crayons to draw the wing and legs.

Some kids used a marker to outline the whole picture.

 LESSON 2

the inside cover

We read the story again and this time we talked about the story’s underlying premise.

At the start, the bus driver asks for help.  “Don’t let the pigeon drive the bus”, he asks.

That pigeon can be very convincing.  After reading the story, brainstorm with the class some ideas.  What would you ask someone to do for you?  What would you be afraid of letting the Pigeon do?  The kids came up with lots of suggestions.  Below are a few of my favorites.

I took 4 pieces of photocopy paper and folded them in half and stapled them like a little book.

The kids glued their cover to the front.  Then we started work on the inside cover.

On the board I showed the children how to write down their title first, and then circle it with a word bubble.

Next they drew the pigeon beside the title, and finally they added their details

“words and pictures by…”

LESSON 3

The story

The story needs to be set up.  So I asked the children to draw themselves asking the reader to not let the pigeon do something.  The picture below shows the girl leaving the hot chocolate alone.

The next page shows the pigeon asking for a sip of hot chocolate.

LESSON 4

Persuasive argument

At the start of this lesson we brainstormed some things that the pigeon could say to try to convince the reader.  Below are a few examples.

LESSON 5

Persuasive argument part 2

This is where I divided it into two lessons, but depending on your kids you could continue on with the next part.  I got the kids to draw a line across the middle of two pages to make 4 squares if they were in grade one…

or divide one page into four sections if they were in grade two.

In these four squares I asked them to write down some reasons that the pigeon would use to convince the reader…

The grade two’s had the choice to do a full page next, or draw four more squares.

This little girl did a full page below.

FINAL LESSON

Solving the problem

We read the story a final time and talked about how the problem was solved.

Then I asked the kids to take their books and read what they had done so far.

Then as a class we discusses ways that they could solve the problem and end their story.

I really liked how this child ended their story.

Other children ended it with the pigeon being really upset and crying.

One child gave the pigeon a bracelet from the rainbow loom in her story.

All in all it was a very fun activity and the kids really enjoyed reading each other’s stories.