Hummingbird Educational Resources

GINGERBREAD MAN

Literacy

The kids made and decorated a gingerbread house. Not bad for 4 year olds. Well it tastes delicious.
We used flannel board to retell the story of the Gingerbread Man.	We made our own gingerbread men using a variety of things: M&M's, sequins, stickers, glitter, and bingo dobbers.
We sequenced the story.	Using the pocket chart we played "Sweet Gingerbread Men Sitting on a Tray" to review reading our names. Pre-program gingerbread man shapes with each child's name. Laminate and put a small piece of magnet tape on the back. Recite the poem, "Sweet gingerbread men sitting on a tray. _______ jumped up and ran away." Place the child's name on the pocket chart in the blank. Have child come and identify the gingerbread man with the same name and have it "run away." Same poem can be used with numbers and sight words. Dowload the poem and clip art here.
These three children worked hard on putting this gingerbread puzzle together. It was difficult since we had no picture to go by. They stuck with it and finally completed the puzzle. I was impressed!	Download this free interactive book on positional words. Move the gingerbreadman above the house, between the reindeers, beside the house, etc. Download the book here.
Paint a paper plate brown and decorate with foam shapes. Add some rick-rack and a bowtie.	Puppets downloaded from Jan Brett site.
Have an idea you would like to share? SUBMIT IDEAS - Submit an idea and receive a coupon for 20% off your next purchase from Hummingbird Educational Resources Catalog More Gingerbreadman Activities CHASING THE GINGERBREAD MAN - first days of school activity Submitted by: Becky I use the Gingerbread Man story at the beginning of the year to introduce my kindergarten children to our school, specialty area teachers, the office staff, cafeteria staff, principal, etc. After reading the story, we make a gingerbread man using cookie dough. I allow the children to take an active roll in rolling out the dough, and creating the Gingerbread Man. We discuss at length measures to prohibit the Gingerbread Man from running away. As a group (usually during phase-in week; 5-6 children), we take the Gingerbread Man to the school cafeteria and ask the cooks to bake our Gingerbread Man. The children are anxious to warn the cooks not to open the oven door. After lunch, we return to the cafeteria to pick up our Gingerbread Man for snack only to find that he has ran away. Our cafeteria manager could win an academy award for her part in this activity. She directs the children in the way that he ran. We begin to go from place to place looking for our Gingerbread Man. This introduces the children to the layout of the building and to the speciality area teachers. Each teacher admits that he/she has seen the Gingerbread Man, but could not catch him. They direct the children to the next location. Our principal or the school secretary is usually the last stop. Our principal usually takes this opportunity to talk to the children concerning rules of the school as well as safety. I usually ask her to take the Gingerbread Man back to our classroom before we arrive in her office. After returning to our classroom, the children are excited to find the Gingerbread Man and are anxious to have him for snack. Almost without exception, they ask to cut his legs first so that he will be unable to run away again. We use icing and sprinkles to decorate. I have been teaching 23 years and this is the activity that my former students remember most. GINGERBREAD MAN Submitted by Marilyn I have been having fun with my 3's class with a gingerbread theme. I have repeatedly read the story of the gingerbread boy by Karen Schmidt. I precut out 6" gingerbread boys (from brown construction paper) and put them on craft sticks. I handed one out to each child at circle time. Then when I was reading the story, they could participate by pretending that their moving their gingerbread boy stick puppets to "run, run as fast as you can". They enjoyed using a prop with the story. We had gingerbread cookies for snack. The next time I did the story using pictures from the story. I xeroxed key photos and put them on crafts sticks. Then I told the story orally (using just the stick pictures) and the children loved that too. We baked gingerbread that day and enjoyed it for snack. Tomorrow, I will have the children tell the story to me using the stick puppets. I have purchased large gingerbread cookies and the children will decorate them with pink icing and m&ms, sprinkles, gumdrops. This will be a hit, I am sure! For art, we decorated large, brown construction paper gingerbread boys. Another day, we used gingerbread boy cookie cutters dipped in white or pink paint and printed onto brown paper. It came out so cute. At the easel, I precut large gingerbread easel paper shapes and they used different types of brushes with brown, white and pink paint. Flannel board 5 small brown gingerbread boys cut from felt 5 little gingerbreads sitting on a tray, one jumped up and ran away, "Catch me, catch me, catch me if you can" "You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man" (continue with 4, 3, 2, 1 gingerbread men) Every time you say "little old lady", the children say "Oh, Dear" (in a very soft high voice) and when you say "little old man", they say (in a very DEEP loud voice) "I'm hungry". Every time you say "ran" or "run", the children hit their hands on the top of their legs. After each animal that is met along the way, they make the appropriate sound. When you say "fox", they can say "swish, swish" for the sound its tail would make. Five Little Gingerbread Men Five little gingerbread men in a row (Hold up five fingers, waving back & forth) Not gonna' eat one no, no, no. (shake finger and head side to side) But they look so sweet from head to toe (hand binoculars at eyes touch head then toes) Crunch, munch...uh oh! (slap thighs on crunch, clap hands on munch, then put hands over mouth on uh oh) Continue until... No little gingerbread men in a row Wasn't gonna' eat one, no, no, no But they looked so sweet that it's sad to tell (binoculars on sweet, then index fingers run down cheeks to represent tears on sad) Crunch..munch... oh well! (slap thighs once, clap once, then throw hands up and shrug shoulders) Home project for The Gingerbread Man Draw a gingerbread man or woman on a piece of large cardboard - one for each student. Send the cardboard gingerbread person home with the children, along with the following note written on a smaller gingerbread paper explaining the project. When the gingerbread creations come back to school, take pictures of each one individually. Put the pictures on pieces or oak-tag to form a booklet. Give each child a chance to talk about his/her creation. Write what the child says-exactly as the child says it- on both the booklet and the large gingerbread person. Send any duplicate pictures and the original creation back home. Dear Parents, I am sending home a gingerbread boy/girl shape for the entire family to decorate. Use your imaginations and anything else that you have sitting around the house. Please return your creation by_________________. Thank you, _________ Take Care (Name of teacher) We made Gingerbread Houses that turned out real cute. Take graham crackers. You need seven.One for the base, for for the walls and two for the roof. I used Royal icing and they stuck really good. Royal Icing 4 cups icing sugar 3 egg whites 1/2 tsp. cream of tarter Beat about 7 minutes. I made the house and the children decorated them with candy canes, fruit loops, coconut (for snow) and gum drops. They turned out adorable. We also made a giant gingerbread man. We let the children roller paint him and added facial features and buttons. We also made gingerbread cookies from the Jan Brett website - from the book Gingerbread Baby and they turned out good.THE GINGERBREAD BABY by Jan Brett We made and decorated a gingerbread cookie. All the children went with me to put it in the oven. When it was time to take him out, he was gone. The looks of their faces was of such surprise. We looked all over the school and then we made a trap for the gingerbread baby and waited. Before long we caught him and ate him at snack. The imagination of a child is priceless. We also decorated a sandpaper gingerbread baby. I used sandpaper because the first thing they did was rub cinnamon all over the baby so it would smell like a real cookie and then they used buttons, ribbons and whatever else I have in the classroom. From the Jan Brett home page I got these Cookie Award Certificates that I also sent home. It was really a fun day Read 'The Gingerbread Baby' by Jan Brett Make gingerbread baby head bands. Staple brown strips of construction paper in circle to fit each childs head have them decorate their paper gingerbread baby cut-out. Decorate with glitter paint, rick rack or other collage materials attach by tape or staples to head band Cookie Game Have children sit in a circle. Choose one child to wear their gingerbread paper head band. He will be the ginderbread child. He walks around the outside of the circle and taps each child on the head. When he comes to the one he wants to chase him, he says "Catch me if you can." as he taps that child. The chase begins. As they chase each other around the outside of the circle the others chant "Run run as fast as you can." "You'll never catch him," "He's the gingerbread man."

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