One of my favorite books (I’ve got a lot of favorites) is Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus. It’s so simple, yet funny. And it’s PACKED with literacy learning. It plays on the author’s purpose…specifically the purpose of persuasion.
ALuv has always loved this book, too. Just this past week, I included it as one of our read alouds to go with the letter P. As I was reading it aloud to the kids, an idea popped into my head. What if we could persuade that cute, little pigeon NOT to drive the bus?!?
First, we defined persuasion as: You’re trying to get another person to think the same way that you do.
ALuv and I got busy thinking of reasons the pigeon should NOT drive the bus. NJoy jumped it, too. We made an entire list, laughing our way through some of our ideas.
Once we had a good list, I challenged ALuv to write a book to the pigeon, including some of our reasons. At first, he was a little hesitant. But once he got going, he put his all into it. His total work time on this project was about 4 hours (not all at one time). And boy, am I proud to show it off!
He started on his “sloppy copy”, getting down those thoughts. Then, I edited his sloppy copy, correcting mostly punctuation and spelling.
I drew a line on his paper, like I showed on my FB page and he wrote out his pages (6 in all).
Then, came the fun part…illustrating it! Now, you need to understand something first. This. boy. hates. to. draw. Asking him to draw is like pulling teeth. He pouts. He moans. He whines. He complains. He drives this mama CRAZY!
But this was different. The best part about Mo Willems’ illustrations is that they’re simple and easy to draw. This made illustrating his book MUCH easier and much more fun! He even included talking bubbles in his pictures. The title of his persuasive writing became Pigeon, Don’t Drive the Bus!
His final copy turned out so great! He’s been very proud of it, reading it to almost anyone who has stepped into our house. And he loves that his writing is funny, making his audience laugh.
And, of course, I made sure to tell him that with all his hard work, that cute, little pigeon will never ask to drive the bus again! 🙂
I shared this post at Sun Scholars For the Kids Friday!
~Becky
Love this idea! I’m thinking I need to sit down and design my writing curriculum for this year.
So clever! This is excellent and the many connections will help this be an anchor lesson not easily forgotten. Thank you so much for sharing! Carolyn
Great lesson. What an awesome opportunity you have by having him home with you to let these lessons lead whereever the child wants to go!
My class loves Mo Willems! Thank you for sharing this fabulous idea!