1-2-3 Come Do Some Gingerbread Reading & Writing Activities With Me

Here’s a super-fun activity that you can do with your kiddos, after reading the story The Gingerbread Man.

I LOVED designing "Gingerbread on the Run" a writing- activity packet, and hope you have oodles of fun with your kiddo's doing these interesting things.

Beforehand, put up the wanted posters in your room.

Run off the masters and put the notes, signs and clues in a variety of places in your school: cafeteria, library, office, gym, whatever...

Get your principal, secretary, cafeteria staff, librarian... in on your adventure and give them a clue card.

After reading the story, tell your students that you are going on an “ed-venture” looking for the gingerbread man and to be on the lookout for clues of his where abouts.

As you arrive at the various destinations have adults say something like: "Oh no! You just missed him, but he left this clue!”

After you make the rounds, return to your classroom to find a note on your door that the gingerbread man left.

While you are gone, have a helper set up gingerbread or cookie treats for your kiddo's snack, and read the note(s) that the gingerbread man left.

I've also included 2 different class-made books. For one, students write a page of their adventure, and on the other one, they tell where they’d run to if they were a gingerbread cookie and why they’d go there.

There are templates for students to do this separately or in groups. They can draw pictures or take a photograph.

There's also a graphic organizer, where students name their gingerbread man, draw a picture of him, then use adjectives to describe him.

Sweet Colors is a wonderful way to review colors and color words, and is a nice addition to your other gingerbread activities.

I've included an emergent reader booklet, with two cover options, where students read the simple sentences, trace and write the color words, then color the gingerbread cookies, as well as the open-letter words that matching color.

There’s also a "Spin to Win" bookmark - coloring game, plus a“Match the color to the word” worksheet.  Click on the link to zip on over to my TpT shop to have a look at Gingerbread Colors.

Today's FREEBIE features a pair of gingerbread "sliders".  They are a quick, easy and fun way to practice and whole-group assess, a variety of standards. 

Such as: sequencing numbers from 1-10, counting backwards, skip counting by 2s, 3s, 5s and 10s, upper and lowercase letters, as well as 2D shapes.

Well that's it for today.  Thanks for stopping by.  Time to switch gears and get ready for a baby shower. 

This will make our 7th grandchild!  Feeling very blessed.  Wishing you a love-filled day.

"Having a baby is a life-changer.  It gives you a whole other perspective on why you wake up every day." -Tayor Hanson

1-2-3 Come Chase The Gingerbread Man With Me!

I LOVED designing this gingerbread writing and activity packet and am so excited to share it with you.  I hope you have oodles of fun with your kiddos doing these fun-filled activities. 

Before hand, put up the wanted posters in your room.  I've included 3, and think the one with the mustache is a hoot.

Run off the masters and put the notes, signs and clues in a variety of places in your school: cafeteria, library, office, gym etc.  Get your principal, secretary, cafeteria staff etc. in on your "ed-venture" and give them a clue card. 

After reading the original story of the gingerbread man, tell your students that you are going on an ed-venture looking for the gingerbread man, and to be on the lookout for clues of his where abouts.

Before hand, fill out the clue cards using plenty of spatial directions.  To get in some math practice, you may want your kiddos to count steps as they go.

The clue cards also come in black and white, but you may want to print everything in color, laminate, and then save for future years.

As you arrive at the various destinations, have adults at those places, say something like: "Oh no! You just missed him, but he left this clue!"  or "I think I spotted him over by that shelf."  (A clue card is on the shelf.)

After you make the rounds, return to your classroom to find a note on your door that the gingerbread man had been looking for them.  As a special surprise, while you are gone, have a helper set up gingerbread or cookie treats for your snack time. 

Now would be the perfect time to do the "Take a bite" graphing activity.  Children take one bite out of their cookie, and you graph what they bit off.  

I've also included a graph for "Who does or doesn't like the taste of gingerbread?"  Both of these graphs can be found in the Gingerbread Class Book packet. 

(Back to the original packet) I've included a class book where each student contributes a page, writing about the day's adventure.  

There are templates for students to do this separately or in groups. 

They can draw pictures or take a photograph. 

There's also a graphic organizer where students name their gingerbread man and describe him. 

Click on the link to view/download the Gingerbread On The Loose Writing and Activity packet.

Later today side note: Woo hoo!  I was surfing the net looking to see if anyone else did a gingerbread hunt and found a 1st-grade teacher (Jodi) who does this on the first day of school. She made adorable rhyming clue cards.  Click on the link to get her darling FREEBIE. (Fun In First.)

If you did the graphing activity, another fun transition would be to play a quick game of Pieces & Parts. Children color their gingerbread and then cut on the lines to make 6 puzzle pieces. 

Students pick a partner and take turns rolling the dice.  Whatever number they roll they glue that piece on their template.  The 1st one done is the winner.  Click on the link to view/download the Pieces and Parts Gingerbread Puzzle. 

Finally, another follow-up writing prompt I call "You're The Man!"  Your students pretend to become the gingerbread man. 

Where are they going? Why are they running?  What people/things are they running past? What finally happened to them?  I've included a fill-in-the-blank template for girls as well as boys to write on.

Encourage students to do a little research about their destination and include plenty of description in their sentences.  Have kiddo's underline adjectives when they do their rough draft, so they know if they have included enough. 

I filled in a sample to give you an idea of what I'm talking about. 

After students share their page, collect, collate and make them into a class book.  Click on the link to view/download the You're The Man! Gingerbread Writing Prompt craftivity.

Thanks for visiting today.  Feel free to PIN away.  If you'd like to see some of the creative and educational items I spend way too much time pinning, click on the link.  I have an entire board of gingerbread activities. 

Interesting bit of trivia:  "E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.  Gingerbread Husbands: Gingerbread cakes fashioned like men and gilt, commonly sold at fairs up to the middle of the nineteenth century."

Run Run As Fast As You Can!  Hop On Board And Make A Gingerbread Man.

The Gingerbread Art and Activity Book has 108 pages of heartwarming arts & crafts + activities that will dazzle and delight.

Some full color pictures, + copy-ready patterns and step-by-step directions for each project are included.

These projects all involve many of your report card standards, like the "Pocket Pal" (pictured on the left.)

If you look closely you can see that the face of the gingerbread is made out of construction paper + 1/2 of a paper plate, which makes a pocket that contains colored shapes, and skip counting folded number strips + anything else you may want to review that day.

The gingerbread "Story Slider" has students sequence the Gingerbread tale to retell the story and makes a nice Daily 5 activity.

The gingerbread clock is an easy and different way to reinforce telling time with your students.

The gingerbread paper chain is a wonderful way to review whatever color pattern you choose, as well as have students count down the days to Christmas, as they tear off a link each day.

Children are learning and reinforcing much-needed math, writing, and science concepts while enjoying art that has a gingerbread theme.  It was one of my Young Fives favorites.

As you can see, many of these make terrific manipulatives, 
or great keepsakes for parents.  You can use them as gifts, bulletin boards, hallway and classroom decorations or for portfolios.

Some of the projects include songs and poems to reinforce those concepts as well.

Click on the link to view/download the Gingerbread Art and Activity Book

Thank you for visiting today.  Feel free to PIN anything you think others may find helpful.

“Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson