The Gingerbread Man

Welcome to our week on the Gingerbread Man!  Should be tasty and fun!

Journal Time - Gingerbread Men - Ms. Sara punched out a bunch of gingerbread men for the kiddos to glue into their journals. 
A few kiddos discovered that they could camouflage their gingys!

Free Play - Map!  The kiddos were using sticky tabs to mark bad guy hideouts, then off they went to capture them.  This lovely, large, laminated map was a donation.   Sweet!

 

Finger Puppet Gingys - The kiddos decorated their gingerbread finger puppet with eyes and buttons (I glued those one with a hot glue gun).  Then they added puffy white paint.

For the toddler class, I did the puffy paint ahead of time, then had them choose and place the buttons.  I hot glued them on.
 

Gingerbread Man Story Map - The kiddos created their own retelling by adding various animals along the gingerbread's path.

Using donated file folders, I set the stage for our story.  The green square is a pocket to hold our gingerbread man. 

 

I stamped animals for the gingerbread to encounter.  The kiddos picked which animals and the order of their story.  The fox did have to go at the end of the story though.

 

This kiddo added gingerbread crumbs by the fox.  Ha!

 

Science - Is is really freezing outside? - During circle time, while doing the weather, we noticed the thermometer was below freezing.  I told the kiddos that meant water would freeze outside.  We decided to do an experiment.  ...  We took cups with varying amounts of water outside to the front porch.  

One kiddo wanted to spill his cup.  We decided away from walking spots was safe.  He poured it on the snow. 

When we came back at the end of class, the cups of water hadn’t frozen yet, but the spilled water did.  In fact, a few more cups were spilled while investigating and that water froze in just the few minutes it took for moms to pick up the kiddos!  Brrr!  We are leaving the cups on the porch to see if they freeze over night.

Science - Is It Freezing? - Continued - The kiddos cups of ice froze on Wednesday, but the "warmer" temperatures on Thursday and Friday melted them a bit.  A few cups had an ice flow in the top.  Cool. 

 

Continued Inside -  One kiddo melted her ice chunk with the heater and her hands.  Another left hers on the table in her cup and it too melted quickly.

Circle Time - Gingerbread Men - The kiddos gingerbread puppets are all dry and ready to run. While reading the story, the kiddos followed along with their gingys.

 
Gingerbread Cookies - Always a tasty adventure.  Recipe: Click here!




Science - Wet Gingerbread Man - In the story, the gingerbread man meets his demise when he takes a ride across the river with a fox.  We decided to see for ourselves what happens when you put a gingerbread man in a "river". 
 
 
We decided to try a few more items...
 

Eating - Yum! "Run, run as fast as you can ..."



Pink Ribbon - I found this at Goodwill this summer for $1.99.  Isn't it fabulous.  I took it as a personal challenge to find uses for it.  This kiddos strung it up as a trip line for bad guys, she rolled under it in spy fashion.


Cereal Box Gingerbread - Ornaments - First I opened several cereal boxes and had kiddos paint them.  We mixed cinnamon into our brown paint.  Once they dried I cut a simple gingerbread shape, the placed out a variety of craft items for them to decorate with.
  



Clay Gingerbread Ornaments - A few of the kiddos thought we were making cookies again.  Nope, nope.  These are for the tree.  On Monday we'll paint them.  I got the recipe for the clay at this site:  Here!

 Once I had baked them in the oven, the kiddos used paint pens (Sharpie) to decorate them.