Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Book Talk Tuesday- Mo Willems

Today I'm linking up with Deanna Jump from Mrs. Jump's Class to share my love of Mo Willems for Book Talk Tuesday!
Oh Mo Willems, how I love thee!!!  Have you read his books?!?!  Elephant and Piggie, Pigeon, Knuffle Bunny??  Maybe I love him because he gives so many emotions to a Pigeon.  Maybe it's because one of his main characters is a pig- a PIG!!!  Maybe it's because he took that silent K at the beginning of knuffle and made sure we all had to say it!!!!  Whatever the reason, he is fantastic!  



We use his books near the end of the year.  After talking ALOT about character's emotions and inferring these emotions we then start talking about speech bubbles and how Mo Willems use them AND the illustrations to show emotions.  It's super fun!

I like to start off with Pigeon:


 I do this because it's one character using speech bubbles, which makes them a little easier to understand.  AND Pigeon interacts with the kids! 
And when the kids say no??
I love that he looks so sad- putting his head down and all...  Then Mo Willems is just so good at showing how to use speech bubbles:
And our favorite part??  When Pigeon screams of course!!! Look at the emotion in the illustration AND in the speech bubble!  The kids pick it up so easily!



 So after working with Pigeon for a week, we move on to Elephant and Piggie:
 You get emotion and humor, BUT you also get conversation using speech bubbles!!



 AMAZING!!

So, then my kids get REAL good at using speech bubbles.  Unfortunately- the school took back our iPads for the summer :-( so this is the only pic I could find:
This is page 4/4.  Mom has been asking and asking and Malak keeps saying no.  Now you read: "MALAK give me a spoon." "Ok."
 Don't you just love mom's angry eyebrows and the absolutely sweet innocent face on the girl!!! Amazing!

Hope you have enjoyed the books and are able to use them in you class! Can't wait to read about more book back at the linkup- head over to Mrs. Jump's Class!

7 comments:

  1. I wish I owned every Mo Willems book. They're great! Your student's work is adorable. I'd love to try this with my 2nd graders. Thanks for sharing :)

    Stacy
    Second Grade Sweetie Pies

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    1. Stacy- I know what you mean!! Luckily Scholastic has had some Mo Willems packs over the last year so I have been able to stock up! And you should totally use it with 2nd grade- I bet they would love it, especially when you scream like the Pigeon does! My kids are so surprised the first time they don't know what to do at first. lol Thanks for stopping by!

      Heather

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  2. Love his work too! They are such great books to hook kids into reading! Nice pick. I love the idea of using the books with speech bubbles!

    A Teacher Without A Class

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    1. Thanks so much! It really gets them motivated to use it because it makes them seem so fun!

      Heather

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  3. My students are also Pigeon and Elephant and Piggie fans. They love looking for Pigeon inside the back cover of the Elephant and Piggie books.

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    1. I had no idea that he puts his other characters in different books until my kids pointed it out this year to me! So fun to look for them after you know they are there!

      Heather

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  4. Mo is my homeboy. Seriously, my whole class was on a first-name basis with this guy. We love him! I had my kids create their own stories (Mo-style) to culminate our author study this last year. I gave them a bunch of black and white photos of different settings to choose from and had them make characters from some of his books to glue on their setting. Then they wrote their story underneath. Not only did they look great, but the kids were using the text features as well as creating stories that were consistent with the character traits we discussed. Talk about rigor ;) So easy to adapt to different grade-levels too!

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