Mo Willems - Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!

This week is second grade we've been reading some Mo Willems books. Well the teacher in the classroom had been. She recently got injured so I have been taking over for her. I read with them "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!"

I read the book, making sure to use funny voices for each character. After we read it I kept score on a smartboard scoreboard (just because using the smartboard always gets their attention) of how many kids would or would not let the Pigeon drive the bus.

I decided to mix a little fun with a following directions activity. The kids had been wanting to draw the pigeon so I decided to do a how to draw the Pigeon on the smartboard. So on the smartboard I had them follow me drawing the Pigeon one slow step at a time. A lot of them felt they couldn't do it but I reassured them that when you go one step at a time and take your time it becomes much simpler. After each step I had the children put down their pencils so A. they wouldn't try to go ahead of me then complain when their Pigeon was jacked up and B. so I could scan the room and not go forward until everyone was ready. Their Pigeons came out great and they were surprised at how well they did with their own hands and a pencil. When they were done I let them color them in.

I also thought I could cross it over into the math we had been learning which is about bar graphs. So I drew a cute chart and had each student come up and place their newly drawn Pigeon pictures on a bar graph for whether or not they would let the Pigeon drive the bus.