If you know the rest of this stanza, you will know that we learned about the Gingerbread Man
in Pre-K! The Gingerbread unit is always a favorite amongst children around the holiday
season. As we read many Gingerbread Man titles, children are introduced to literacy skills
such as comparing and contrasting, character development, vocabulary, settings, sequencing
events, and making predictions.
Did you know there are more than 30 Gingerbread titles? They vary between the
traditional fairytale that we know and love, to newer titles that introduce different
characters, settings and outcomes. The one common theme… the Gingerbread
person ALWAYS runs!
Not only are we focusing on the exciting collection of Gingerbread books, but we
had fun learning with different gingerbread activities, too! The first book we read
was The Gingerbread Man, and the main character was scared to get into the water.
We had to learn WHY he was scared and opted to jump on the foxes back rather than
get into the water. Then we had a conversation about what might happen if the
Gingerbread Man got wet. Once we made some guesses, it was time to put the cookie
into a jar with water. We patiently waited as the cookie drifted to the bottom of the jar,
and then broke apart into pieces. We learned the word dissolved, and how the cookie
was affected by the water. Now we understand why the Gingerbread Man does not want
to get wet!
After we learned why the Gingerbread Man does not want to get wet, we read
another Gingerbread story we read was the Gingerbread Baby. This story was
different from the others because the Gingerbread baby did not become a snack
for the sneaky fox. The Gingerbread Baby has a friend named Matty who helped
him hide in a gingerbread house. After we read the story and compared the events
to our other titles, we created our own gingerbread house. We decorated the house,
and on the inside, we drew a picture of ourselves holding the Gingerbread Baby.
Children learned different prepositional words during our unit, too. Our resident
Gingerbread Man, Crispin, liked to hide in different places in our classroom every
day, and the children had the opportunity to practice using different prepositional
words. Did you know that children master different prepositional words at different
points in their development?
“Crispin is NEXT TO the snowman.”
Our other EC Teacher, Ms. Kilkenny is a master homemade play doh maker, and
she whipped up a big batch of sweet smelling Gingerbread play doh. Children
enjoyed making their own Gingerbread people and Gingerbread items using cookie
cutters and their own creative ideas.
As we wrap up our unit, we have a very important activity to complete. We get to
make our very own Gingerbread Man! We each took turns adding and mixing
ingredients so he turned out perfect. We popped him into the oven, and went back
to class.
Just when we thought we were going to be enjoying a nice, warm cookie.. OH NO!!
Our very own Gingerbread Man has escaped and is running through Goodrich School!
We have to find him! Thankfully, we have been left clues as to where to seek out our
Gingerbread Man. So off we went to find him!
We searched high and low for our gingerbread man. We went to find Mr. Ortiz, who s
aid that the Gingerbread Man had run right past him! He said the Gingerbread Man was
SO FAST!
After searching high and low, we finally found our Gingerbread Man! He was back in
our classroom, and it was our turn to taste the gingerbread cookie that we baked.
He was delicious, and made our bellies very happy! Our preschool students were very
excited and engaged while learning a variety of things over the course of our Gingerbread
Unit. It was a fun addition to the holiday season.
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