Ms. Faith Siegrist over at Classy Classroom has this great year-round Gingerbread activity in her TpT Store (and even better, it's on SaLe right now!). Here is how I put it to great use with my "on the bubble" students.
I'm always looking for great ways to get my students thinking beyond what they are reading on the page. Nothing makes me crazier than when they are going through the motions, reading the words and leaving them there on the page. This activity was just the ticket to get them thinking!
Gingerbread in Disguise suggests a handful of Gingerbread Man books to accompany this lesson, however my school library is extremely limited so I improvised and used a classic Gingerbread Man book. The greatest thing about this activity is she included SO MANY different activities and opportunities to differentiate, which is right up my Title I alley. I chose to use the fill-in-the-blank story for my 1st graders. First, we read the book and discussed all of the gingerbread man's dilemmas and options. This quickly led into my students suggesting that he could either hide or disguise himself (perfect!). We then talked further about disguising our gingerbread men (or girls). After discussion I gave them each a black and white gingerbread to disguise. (Mrs. Siegrist suggests having students use classroom materials such as foil or yarn to disguise your gingerbread man, but I didn't have those supplies. Instead we went with the good ol' crayons and colored pencils. Worked like a charm!)
My students LOVED decorating their gingerbread people and thinking of clever ways to disguise them. We then worked together to fill in the blanks on the provided worksheet. Then we took it a step further and I had my students rewrite their stories on the "First/Next/Then/Last organizer" and they drew pictures of their disguised gingerbread people to reinforce their understanding of what they were writing.
The students were so proud of their project, they insisted I hang it for their classroom teachers to see when they passed by, so that's exactly what I did. My classroom is right next to the office, so everyone passing by got a chance to stop and read about our gingerbread people.
I will tell you, at first I chose to do this activity right before winter break because I was thinking, gingerbread = Christmas time, but don't be fooled. This activity can be done anytime of year, just as the Gingerbread Man is a classic no matter what month it is.
I hope you will stop over and visit Mrs. Siegrist, she's sweet as pie and has some really great items in her store. Just click on either of the links below and enjoy!
Looking for a whole collection of great products reviewed by fellow teachers? Head on over the Mrs. Stanford's Class!
Enjoy your weekend!
