#bethedifference Gingerbread Week

The PERFECT Man


He's cute, he's sweet, 
and he doesn't get upset 
when you bite his head off.
Introducing, the Gingerbread Man!


Gingerbread week happens to be one of my favorite times of the school year.  Kids are engaged and eager to participate in learning activities centered around various ginger friends who always seems to be on the run!  

Today I'm writing to share with you some fun resources I found on The Mailbox Gold to enhance my instruction and boost reading engagement with my first graders.

I find engagement to be at it's height when teaching themes.  Setting the stage elicits excitement while meeting the standards.  This week, we will turn my classroom into a sugar sweet learning lab. The entrance includes yummy candy canes and lollipops that flank the classroom doors.  


Using pool noodles and decorative masking tape, you can create whimsical candy canes. For making lollipops and candy, you'll need pool noodles, pvc pipe, paper lanterns and saran wrap. These elements go a long way to providing the wow factor!  

Our winter wonderland wouldn't be complete without a little snow.  Living in Florida, we have to imagine what snow looks and feels like as we roast with temperatures in the 80s.  


To create the effect, my sister and I strung around 10 cotton balls on approximately 3 feet of fishing line. You'll need a needle and a glue stick to complete the task.  Once you have 10 cotton balls, you'll need to space them out in random widths.  Use a dab of glue by rubbing the stick on the areas where the balls are located.  A little glue goes a long way. Cotton won't need much to adhere to the line. 

The focus for this post is reading engagement.  Candy capers will elicit so much excitement. I prepared our reading matrix using delicious candy prints found on The Mailbox Gold.  The site provides blacklines of M&Ms, Gumdrops, Candy Canes, Peppermints and Hersey Kisses.  YUMMY! The matrix will become our instructional focus as we compare various texts of The Gingerbread Series.  Below is a sample of several PDFs available for download.  





Pre-typed comparisons are ready to be attached as we explore each book.  The kids will assist in recording various characters and outcomes on the white board.  At the end of the lesson, I will have my students adhere the pre-typed papers to the chart since the space is limited.  You can always facilitate the discussion to ensure the outcome essentials are provided and match the content in which you prepared in advance.  

One of the first activities we will complete includes a graphing activity.  I bought several packs of Little Debbie Snacks.  Goodness, the kids are excited and this eliminates baking stress on me.  The snacks are sitting on their desk when they arrive.  Their eyes are already glazed over and eager to figure out the direction of the lesson.  

I find completing this task first gives the kids the necessary schema for what gingerbread smells and taste like.  Surprising enough, I have over half my class that's never had a gingerbread cookie before. We often take for granted that our student know and understand the text.  Weaving in various content areas helps develop a deeper meaning.  Bring on a little math with graphing...


Also available on The Mailbox Gold are various gingerbread printables.  I found the different options to meet the various instructional needs.  I used the decorated gingerbread men for our retelling props. The large gingerbread men are programable and used for the matrix. The smaller gingerbread men are used for the graphing activity.  For a visual representation, I cut the gingerbread to match the recording sheet provided by The Mailbox Gold.


Using various comprehension pages from my freebie book companion, I follow up with the different stories using a variety of strategies.  This allows for me to informally check their understanding with a familiar format.  


This repetitive text provides students with confidence as they work on retelling and fluency. The Mailbox Gold provides visual retelling props used in the matrix and below on tongue depressors for use in our drama center.  


My niece helped me work through any challenges I may face in the week.  Madelyn just turned four and found the flaws in my printing, lol!  However, she did a remarkable job as I read the text and she reenacted the parts with the retelling sticks from The Mailbox Gold.  The puppet theater came from The Land of Nod and has been used in my classroom for five years.  



I find the kids ABSOLUTELY love this book and are eager to take the back seat to read while their partner is reenacting...


To build a purposeful theme, I want to weave the topic of gingerbread in each content area.   Tuesday will be full of excitement as I challenge the kids with a stem project.  We will be building a gingerbread house with gumdrops and toothpicks.  This will provide the kids with an understanding of the shapes needed to construct our own gingerbread playhouse for the classroom.  


Once we understand the foundation of a gingerbread house, we will construct one using a furniture box from a local store.  I'm assigning kids to work on various tasks when building our playhouse. My experts will create a few sentences sharing how they completed their task.  We will work to collectively combine their words into a shared "how-to" writing paper which will become a model for their independent papers at the conclusion of the week. The Keeper of the Cheerios has an outstanding visual blog post on how to create a cardboard gingerbread house.



By the end of the week, we will bake gingerbread cookies together, following the step by step directions on the Betty Crocker package.  This allows students to see the value of detailed instruction when teaching someone following your steps.

Our final task for the week will include decorating a gingerbread man while explaining how in their own paper.  This performance writing task will become a portfolio writing sample. 


This week is packed full of themed learning that is sure to make magical memories!  Don't let themes overwhelm you.  You certainly don't have to squeeze in everything.  I find going big builds excitement for learning so I typically do one large theme a month.  Best wishes to you and your littles as you navigate through the holidays!

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog post!  I'm thrilled to share a surprise giveaway hosted by The Mailbox.  The Mailbox team has offered one of my readers a giveaway for a $100 Visa Gift Card. Please check this post on Saturday for the announced winner.


a Rafflecopter giveaway


Congrats to Sharon Marie!  
Your winning gift card is in the mail.  Best Wishes!
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45 comments:

Stacey said...

Love all the sweet ideas for this little guy!thanks

kelley c said...

Your room looks amazing. I love the pool noodle candy and candy canes.

Suzy Q said...

Our gingerbread week is a favorite of mine. Thanks for some new ideas!

Unknown said...

The neverending engagement and fun for all of your Gingerbread activities is amazing! Your students will love their memorable week. Genius idea for the pool noodles too!

Unknown said...

Love retelling cards does maikbox gold have this often? We are a scripted isd right now so i can add fun things but not create entire units to teach. Not sure mailbox gold would be useful for me?

Katie said...

These are some great ideas! Thanks for sharing :) I'm going to try the graphing idea of "What part did you eat first?".

Cindy said...

We're working on the Gingerbread Man this week!! Thanks for the yummy ideas!! :o)

Anonymous said...

So many great ideas! I love using "The Gingerbread Man" story in my classroom. Thanks for sharing!

Unknown said...

Love your Gingerbread man ideas. I am adding them to my file right now. I always do Gingerbread Man activities the first of December to keep the Santa frenzies from taking over the class. Thanks for the great resources!

Mendy said...

What a terrific transformation! Thank you for sharing these fabulous ideas - I can't wait to incorporate a few! mkschanck@baschools.org
Mendy

Kathy said...

Wow, what a fun week with lots of sweet ideas! :)

Katie said...

Omgosh I love how you bring your room to life! I need more time and energy in my day!!

Idalia T. said...

Because a little bit of of "sugar" makes the learning go down!!!! AMAZING week for your students. Hmmmm... Gingerbread in January when we return from Christmas break?? YES!!!

Ronalea Freeth said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ronalea Freeth said...

Wow! This is amazing! It is so magical! I want to do it all!!!

Unknown said...

Great blog. Thank you for all the wonderful ideas for the gingerbread man theme.

Sarah Mackliet Paskett said...

Great theme ideas. I especially love the graphing idea. When I do the Gingerbread man we compare texts Gingerbread man and Gingerbread baby.

Steph81 said...

Wonderful ideas! I'd love to do this with my 2nd graders!

Unknown said...

Love reading your blog. Love gingerbread theme. This time of year is my favorite.

Unknown said...

Love reading your blog. Love gingerbread theme. This time of year is my favorite.

susan said...

Love the overload of sweetness in this post!

MikesMom said...

Love all the activities! Our class can't wait to work on some.

Unknown said...

We are doing the gingerbread man and gingerbread girl over the next two weeks following Deanna Jump and DeeDee Will's Guiding Readers so these extra activities will be PERFECT! Thanks for the great ideas!

Unknown said...

These ideas are ADORABLE and I am in love with your decorations!!

Unknown said...

Love all of these ideas and your classroom!!

hsease said...

I used your amazing free unit and my class loved it!! Thank you!!

michelle said...

YUMMY GOOD FUN !!!!!!! Michelle Miller

Judi Kimmitt Kramer said...

Love all you ideas. You are my inspiration.Megan Margaret

Mrs. Wyman said...

Great ideas. Thanks for sharing. We love Gingerbread so much, there's no way we could keep it to one week. Try Gingerbread Month! :-)

kathy said...

Great gingerbread ideas!

Dianne said...

WOW that is amazing!!! How do you do it all?!?!

Rosemary said...

Thank you for sharing all these great gingerbread ideas! I will be adding some of them to my gingerbread man activities.

Amy said...

We are in our 2nd week of The Gingerbread Man/Boy. Love all our your ideas. Thank you for sharing.

Mary Kaye said...

Thank you for all of your great ideas and examples for the gingerbread man.

Rachelle Moore said...

Love this post and all the yummy Gingerbread fun!

Valerie McElroy said...

Your room looks SWEEEET!!!

Ellen said...

Love your pool noodle candies!

Unknown said...

Love your gingerbread house!! So cute!!

Unknown said...

Love your gingerbread house!! So cute!!

Unknown said...

Love your ideas!

Missy Green said...

Thanks for the great ideas - I'm going to have to buy those Little Debbie snacks because we forgot to graph which body part we ate first!!!

Kari said...

My class always loves gingerbread week! Thanks for the great ideas!

Unknown said...

I love all of your ideas for the Gingerbread week. I love using all the books that have been written about Gingerbread. Thanks

Unknown said...

I love gingerbread week! Thanks for some new ideas to liven it up!

LBettis said...

What fun ideas! Love the pool noodle suckers!