Are you looking for the best gingerbread man activities for kindergarten and first grade? Here are some of my favorite things we've done over the years!
Compare And Contrast
There are so many great versions of The Gingerbread Man, it's hard to pick just one! So of course, we took this opportunity to read several different books and compare and contrast each one. We used this chart to compare the characters, setting and plot in four different books.
I like to begin with the traditional version of The Gingerbread Man by Karen Schmidt. It's a simple, easy to read folktale that the kids enjoy.
Next we read the story of The Gingerbread Girl. In this cute tale, the old man and old woman decide to bake a girl instead of a boy. She's one smart cookie and runs off like her brother, but this time she outsmarts the fox!
Gingerbread Writing Activity and Craft
After reading both of these books, the students made their own gingerbread boy or girl. I gave them a simple pattern to trace for the body and then they used our scrap box to add all of the details. I think they turned out super cute!
We've been learning about letter writing lately, so we took this opportunity to write a letter to our own gingerbread kid and tried to talk them out of running away! Grab the gingerbread craft and writing template here.
The Gingerbread Baby Activities
Our next story was The Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett. I love this wonderful author with her beautiful illustrations. My firsties love the little windows that she puts on each page with a hint of what will happen next in the story.
In this book, a little boy named Mattie decides to bake a gingerbread man but opens the oven a bit too early….and out pops a gingerbread baby! Of course, he runs away and havoc ensues as everyone, but Mattie. tries to chase the little rascal around town. If you haven't read the book, I don't want to give away the ending but Mattie saves the day with a clever trick!
Adopting Our Gingerbread Babies
After reading this book, my students were thrilled when a basket of gingerbread babies arrived in our classroom. The basket was filled with tiny gingerbread toys and a letter from Mattie asking us to care for these extra gingerbread babies he had made.
My kids had a blast caring for their tiny new baby, making it a baby book and even filling out it's birth certificate! Hop over here to see everything we did in this adorable lesson!
Our final gingerbread book was Gingerbread Mouse by Katy Bratun. I love to make gingerbread houses with my students each year, so I was so excited to find this book. It's all about a little mouse who searches for a house and finally finds the perfect one for him….a gingerbread house!
After reading this story, we worked together to make a huge gingerbread house and labeled it with adjectives to describe the house. The students thought of words like sticky, sweet, tasty and yummy!
Independent Writing
These are such cute and fun ideas!
Thanks so much!
Nice ideas for stimulating writing.
So sweet!
Great ideas. I will use them next week. Thanks