Gingerbread Man Activities

Do you love Gingerbread Man activities as much as I do?

I just love using these fun stories and incorporating all content areas in my gingerbread man unit. Here are some of the fun things we do! All of the activities shown are included in my Gingerbread Man Mega-Pack.

I start by reading The Gingerbread Man by Jim Aylesworth. I use picture cards to act out the story on my pocket chart as I read it. Kids retell and act out the story on the pocket chart afterwards too.

Then, they complete the sequencing activity below and use it to practice retelling the story to one another.

Or, they glue the story elements (differentiated) and retell using these pictures.

As we read different versions of the gingerbread man, we complete this chart and compare/ contrast the story versions. Displaying the information on a chart helps kids clearly see the similarities and differences, and they are able to talk about them with partners.

We also compare and contrast The Gingerbread Man to The Gingerbread Baby using a Venn diagram activity, which is differentiated with 3 levels.

We also compare the main characters in the stories and make character maps, describing each gingerbread character’s traits and giving examples.

After we read each version, it gets added to my retelling center and kids love to grab the books and pieces to read and act out, or compare and contrast with a partner.

I place a copy of this rebus story in our book bins for rereading practice and 1:1 correspondence while reading.

We learn the sight words ‘look’ and ‘at’ and after mixing and fixing these sentences on our pocket chart, we make a poem chart for shared or partner reading.

During centers or in the morning when kids come in, they can build sight words using wikki stix or play-doh with these simple gingerbread man mats. The sight word cards are my double-sided sight word sentence cards. I love these because kids can turn to the sentence side to help them read and know the word they are working on. We have a rule that they have to know which word they are building! This makes this sight word activity meaningful.

We also make inferences with these differentiated passages and you can grab them for FREE (scroll down for the link)!

. . . and with these writing printables!

Of course, we make a huge gingerbread man for our classroom and label him/her. It’s a favorite morning activity for my kindergartners and they come out adorable!

Kids label using their sheets as well. 3 versions for this.

Another morning activity they love is “baking” gingerbread cookies! I found these cookie trays at The Dollar Tree, the cut-outs from Michaels, used a bowl for mixing, cut out gingerbread man decorations clip art, and borrowed my daughter’s felt oven!

I also made these easy little oven mitts by just cutting out and stapling felt pieces together. These were a last-minute addition and I’m sure you could do a better job with these! 🙂

Here’s our mini-book for how to make a gingerbread man cookie. Kids can decorate the cookies on the last page!

Of course, we also have gingerbread activities during center time!

Math also gets a sprinkle of gingerbread fun! We graph our favorite types of holiday treats, make gingerbread man glyphs, play Uncover the Picture (below) and practice subtraction with our task cards (below).

I love to end our unit with a gingerbread man hunt around the school. It’s based on the book The Gingerbread Man Loose in School by Laura Murray. After reading, we make a small gingerbread man and decorate him. I drop the kids off at special and our g-man runs away! (I take a picture of him before he escapes) The kids make wanted posters for him just like in the story, then we find a letter he left behind that sends us on a chase around the school for him. Of course, I coordinate ahead of time with our special area teachers and the kids have a blast using the clues to find him. Our chase ends in the cafeteria and Gingy leaves us a large plate of cookies we can actually eat! 🙂

As you can see, I just love this unit! All of these activities are included in my Gingerbread Man Mega-Pack! Grab it here for over 160 pages of gingerbread fun!

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