December

Main Themes:
Gingerbread
Christmas
An author study of Jan Brett



Click here to read some December words.



The Gingerbread Man

GINGERBREAD CHILDREN By: Ilo Orleans Gingerbread children Stand in a row-- Very good children Always, you know. They never will jump Or kick or leap, Or start to cry when It's time to sleep They never run off Or look around And no one has heard Them make a sound. Gingerbread children Are fine to meet; But, much better still, They're good to eat.

We begin this unit by reading a Big Book copy of The Gingerbread Man. We go over some of the main details in the story and take turns retelling the story. The next day, I re-tell the story using a great flannelboard set that I have. I get the students to help me as I re-tell it. That afternoon, we read Jan Brett's version called The Gingerbread Baby We then make a venn diagram of the two stories. By this time of the year we have made quite a few venn diagrams and my students are quite used to them. We also make a venn diagram of which story the students liked better- The Gingerbread Baby, The Gingerbread Man or Both. The students attach a visual representation of themselves to the diagram to see where they fit in.


Here is a link to Jan Brett's website. I highly recommend it as it is full of great ideas and a lot of sheets that can be printed off and used in the class.



Next, we make gingerbread. On this day, we make traditional gingerbread cake. This cake is really moist and I love it! It is interesting to see which students like it and which don't. I left the recipe at school, so I will put it up later in the week. We pass the ginger around and talk about the smell of it. I also bring in a piece of ginger to look at. Later on in the unit we make gingerbread houses using graham crackers, white icing, candies and individual sized milk cartons. These are very easy to make and look cute! I get the students to bring in the candies and we usually have quite a few left over for a christmas party later on in the unit. Here is a link to some pictures from Mrs. Hall's grade one students from 1999-2000. She has some pictures of her students making houses that are very similar to ours. They look great.

Gingerbread (Tune: Frere Jacques) Gingerbread, Gingerbread, Yum, yum, yum, Yum, yum, yum. I like gingerbread, I like gingerbread, In my tum, In my tum, (From: More Piggyback Songs)

The next morning we re-read the gingerbread baby. In the afternoon, we take turns acting the story out. In the past, we used to just act out the parts in front of the class, but this year I found some wonderful masks on the Jan Brett website to print off and use. By this time, I have read the story a few times and the students have played with the flannleboard story as a centre, so they are quite familiar with the repeated verses.


We then construct a story map of The Gingerbread Baby. We draw the main characters and try to sound out their names. We draw the setting and we draw the problem. Lastly, we draw the solution.


Finally, we make construction paper gingerbread men, women and babies to decorate our room. After the students cut out the main body out of brown paper, I let them make their own decisions as to how to decorate their gingerbread person. They really like glitter glue! Once these are completed, we put them up around our room. We also make giant peppermint candies like you would find on a gingerbread house. This idea came from the Jan Brett website as well. They are really easy to make and look great hanging around the room. We take two white paper plates and color red triangles onto the plates to make them look like red and white peppermint candies. We then staple the plates together and cover them with saran wrap and tie each end with christmas curling ribbons. Here is the link to see what they look like: Candy Decorations


The Kinder Korner website has a fantastic Gingerbread unit called G is for Gingerbread. Check it out. This website always inspires me! Here is the direct link to the G is for Gingerbread section. This year, I think I am going to get my students to make the gingerbread glyphs. We have not made any glyphs yet this year, so it will be interesting to see how they turn out.

Here are some Gingerbread links:

G is For Gingerbread(Kinder Korner)
Mrs. Fischer's Gingerbread Unit
Jan Brett's Site
Ms. Pieczko's Gingerbread Unit
Mrs. Vig's Gingerbread Ideas
Gingerbread Decorated Doors
Teaching with Heart Gingerbreadman Unit
Primary Teacher's Nook Gingerbread Man Unit
A Gingerbread Boy to print out and colour
A Gingerbread Girl to print out and colour
Mrs. Anderson's Gingerbread Unit

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