Elephant and Piggie Unit

This week was pink and gray week.  Students learned how to spell these color words and celebrated those colors by wearing pink and gray on Wednesday.  This is a perfect week to do a Elephant and Piggie Unit.  This book series is by Mo Willems.  His books are great to show voice, feelings and good character.  I found a great resource at Mo Willems' website Elephant and Piggie Party Kit. I used the feelings page for several activities in the classroom. We kicked off the unit with Should I Share My Ice Cream? After reading this book we think-pair-shared with partners how they shared with someone and how it made the other person feel. I did a quick object lesson with a "cookie" on how to share something equally.  I introduced terms of "half" and "whole".  Students then had to work with a partner to half their cookie.

Then we wrote a class book.  You can find this resource for free at TPT from Teaching  Resource Resort.

The Next book I read aloud was I Love My New Toy!! With this book we talked about different feelings we have.  I used a printable from Mo Willems' website to show different facial expressions of Gerald and Piggie.  I had the students help me label them and give examples of when they may feel these emotions.  Here is a picture of the big chart we did together.

I blew up one of Piggie's picture and punched holes around the circle for the students to work on fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination and concentration. 

One of the days following a read aloud. Students made paper plate Elephant or Piggie.  They worked with a partner to act out their favorite Elephant and Piggie book.  They loved performing for the class.

My mom gave me these cute stuffed animals and I used them for a sight word game.  The students would pass them around the circle and when I said stop the two holding the stuffed animals tried to read the sight word first.  The one who did not answer first had to use the sight word in a silly sentence.  (You might want to put boundaries on the sentences they get pretty silly at this age)

I read a few more Elephant and Piggie books throughout the week and I finished the unit with a mini-lesson on Characteristics/Adjectives of Gerald and Piggie.  I made a venn diagram of the two characters to help the students see how Elephant and Piggie are alike and different.

 Students then worked on my Elephant and Piggie printable found at my TPT store for FREE. (Please leave feedback and follow me)

Students would go back to anchor chart to figure out sight word and paste in appropriate location.

Happy Pig Day!!