Pigeon Activities Inspired by Mo Willems’ Books

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We had the best time with this week’s book themed day. We didn’t choose just 1 book, but we focused on all the books in the Pigeon series written by Mo Willems. If you haven’t read these books before, you have to read them ASAP! They are so great to read to children because they are silly and fun.

Earlier this week, we spent a whole day with Pigeon activities inspired by Mo Willem’s books. In the morning, we made hats to look like the Pigeon in the books.

 

For the hat, I cut out the following from foam sheets:

• a blue band to go around the head
• a skinny blue band for the neck
• a thin white strip for the neck
• a large blue circle for the head
• a medium white circle for the eye
• a small black circle for the eye
• two yellow pieces for the beak

Then I had the kids glue the pieces together. I measured the blue band around my children’s heads and then stapled it in place. It was lose enough for them to easily slide it off their head. I think they turned out really cute! They look a little big on their heads, so next time I will make them slightly smaller. 🙂 The kids adored their hats and wore them for most of the day!

After that, we read the first book in the series – Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! Then we watched the Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus Video that we got from the library! It was a great video because at the end, it has Mo Willems reading the book to a group of kids and teaching them how to draw the pigeon. Of course we had to try drawing the pigeon, too!

After play time, we read the book The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog! Then we ate hot dogs for lunch! (I forgot to take pictures!!)

After lunch, we read The Duckling Gets a Cookie!? and made cookies together! We made my favorite chocolate chip recipe. These cookies are the best! They are always soft and bake perfectly.

Here’s the recipe:

1. Combine 1 cup of butter, 1/4 cup sugar, 3/4 cup brown sugar in a mixer.
2. Add 1 tsp vanilla and 2 eggs. Beat until light and fluffy.
3. Add 1 pkg (3.4 oz) of instant vanilla pudding and mix.
4. Then add 2 1/2 cups of flour and 1 tsp. baking soda (I add in 1 cup of flour at a time so the powder doesn’t fly everywhere when I mix it! Also, sometimes I add in a little more flour if the dough looks too soft)
5. Add 1 cup of chocolate chips (and nuts if you want!).
6. Put dough balls on a cookie sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes in a 350 F oven.

Later in the day, we read Mo’s latest Pigeon book The Pigeon Needs a Bath! (I got this book for Wes earlier this year and I think we’ve read it 100 times…he’s obsessed!) Then we made a craft. It’s a dirty Pigeon in the bathtub.

Here’s how we made it:

1. We painted 1 and a half paper plates blue.
2. I cut out pieces for the pigeon’s body out of construction paper. (Similar to the pieces I explained above for the hat, I just added in a blue body)
3. The kids glued the pieces of paper together to create the pigeon
4. They made the pigeon look dirty by coloring it brown in
5. After the paper plates were dry, we stapled the half pieces to the whole paper plate to make a pocket.
6. We then placed the pigeon inside. You could also glue him inside.

I had the kids visit Mo Willem’s website all about the Pigeon books! It is SO cute! They loved the games. We even had fun with printing out sheets and coloring them.

At the end of the day, we read the book Don’t Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late! It was a great way to end our Pigeon themed day!

Whew! That was a very, very fun day we had! The kids LOVED it and can’t wait for our next book-themed day! If you missed our first day, you can read about it here.

Happy Reading!