A Day with Pigeon!
Welcome to our “Instill the Love of Reading – DIY At Home Reading Camp” series. For this camp day, we turned to the wonderful world of Mo Williems, his beloved pigeon, and friends like Elephant and Piggie!
We hope this article helps your little ones find the JOY in reading! If you’re looking for more ideas on this camp series or activities to inspire kids to love reading, please feel free to check out our other At Home Literature Camp posts and Love of Reading.
A TYPICAL DAY
All kids are different and you can definitely vary your day with whatever works for you 🙂 But the gist of our day having our kiddos focus on some work books or online learning tools in the early morning, an intro to the day’s theme after they were done, some videos around lunch time, and themed activities (reading time, writing time, crafts, food crafts/snacks, and games or experiments) in the afternoon. Feel free to pick and choose whatever works for you 🙂
INTRO
Many kids are already familiar with the famous pigeon from Mo Williems’ books, but if not, feel free to browse the author’s site: https://pigeonpresents.com/ and head over to the library or bookstore to grab a few books!
WHAT TO WATCH
- Mo Williems has a “Lunch Doodles with Mo Williems” series where he shows how to draw a few things. You can pair this activity with craft/activity time for added fun!
FOOD CRAFTS / SNACKS
The pigeon books actually do have some food involved (The Duckling Gets a Cookie, The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog), but we picked the cookie route. This snack can be paired with one of the worksheets in the Pigeon Cookie Activity Sheet, where kids get to design a cookie. If your kids’ imaginations take you to a reasonable design (not a giant cookie the size of a house….), then perhaps you can add that on your things-to-bake list! (We actually also did have Hot Dogs for lunch 😉 just to keep in theme)
- Cookies!
READING
It’s no secret that reading helps prevent that summer slide. Some even say this is the most important. Here are a few related to our theme:
- Mo Williems Books
In one of the activity sheets on the website: Pigeon School Activity Sheets, there’s a “License to Read” card, which was a cute little activity for the kids to go along with the reading portion of their day.
WRITING & WRITING PROMPTS
Just like reading, writing helps prevent that summer slide by both encouraging their creativity but also their motor skills and penmanship.
If you’ve got a little one, have them trace words related to the theme: Pigeon, Elephant, etc..
If you’ve got older children, have them write a sentence or two up to a page or two (depending on their age). Encourage them to be creative AND give reasons for why they made certain choices. The activity sheets actually do have quite a number of writing activities as well if you’d rather print those out.
- What is your favorite Mo Williems book and why?
- Who is your favorite Mo Williems character? If you could meet this character in real life, what would you say to him/her/them?
CRAFTS
There are actually quite a few activities on the site that you can print out as well: mazes, word searches, games, etc.. We picked out a few and tried them out: Pigeon Presents – Downloads
THANK YOU!!!
Thank you for checking out our at home play / summer camp guide & Thank You to Mo Williems and Pigeon Presents for wonderful books and making this such an easy day to plan! Hopefully this has helped grow the love of reading in your home and/or even inspired more ideas! Feel free to browse and find more literature camp ideas here: At Home Literature Camp.
Also, if you haven’t already, check out some of our other at home play / summer guides: DIY Camps.
If you enjoyed this article, please let us know what you think in the comments below and/or follow us on Pinterest
Happy Reading!
