It’s Gingerbread Time Again!

It’s time for Jan Brett in January! Having students two years in a row is such an amazing gift! I get to see them grow from shy, quiet little ones to confident, talkative almost kindergartners! Once or twice I’ve been asked, for example, why I’m “doing gingerbread” again, since we did it last year. I’m careful to change activities enough to keep it interesting. AND after all, we do themes such as Thanksgiving and the Post Office every year, too! 😉
Knowledge of learning styles and abilities is key. When I read a story, some of the little ones are successful if they can sit and attend to the whole story. Can they tell me what happened first? Next? I love seeing the older ones consider the story more carefully. WHY did the character act that way? What do you think it should do differently?
THE most important part of introducing this unit is determining a very important fact. What is the Gingerbread Boy? A COOKIE! What do we do with cookies? We EAT them!!!! This is very important to prevent trauma with some of the versions of the story! On Wednesday, each child was given a gingerbread cookie and was told to place it on the napkin in front of them. First, they had to LOOK at it and describe it (“Can we EAT it?”) Then they could touch it and describe it.. (“Can we eat it NOW?”) Then, they had to pick it up and SNIFF it.it! (“MMMMMm….. can we eat it at snack time?”) The final instruction: “Look at your cookie and decide what you’re going to bite first, the head, an arm, or a leg.! Now, take ONE bite!”)
We found out that 12 people bit the head first, three people an arm and ONE person a leg. We made a bar graph to illustrate our results. (Look for it in our classroom!)
Afterwards, the children each decorated a paper gingerbread house and described it to me.
Getting our snow clothes on everyday still takes some time, but the children are becoming more independent each day and are willing to help each other. Going outside is SNOW much fun!!!