I LOVE Gingerbread week!

I have had a blast with my Gingerbread unit this year!  The kids LOVE the books I’ve been reading…they know the words and say them right along while I’m reading!  They are so excited to do every center this week!  They can’t wait to paint, decorate, mark letters, play memory games…you name it!  I have so many fun center activities, It is tough to decide which ones to do and which to keep as back-up for next week!  I want to do them all!  I have to thank the awesome clip artists-Laura Strickland at Whimsy Clips, Krista Walden with Creative Clips, and EduClips!  I adore the cute clip art, the kids LOVE the fun images, and I have come up with so many fun ways to use their wonderful work.

An activity that I did today with my PreK is and emergent reader entitled “One Yummy Gingerbread Man”.  It is a fantastic sequencing activity that never fails to please!  I think I have done this activity for 5 years now, and it is always a favorite.  The key is to use “fancy” scissors.  I have a bunch of scrap booking scissors from my mom’s days of doing paper crafts..thanks mom!  The scissors are a little bit harder to use than our regular scissors, so there is a fine motor skills element to the activity as well as just the sequencing element.  I think my favorite part of this activity is the look on the kids faces as they ‘bite’ off the parts of the gingerbread man…especially the head…they all get such fiendish grins!  I wish I knew who to credit for this amazing activity, but I found it online years ago and I just don’t remember-but, a huge shout out to the creative teacher who made this before me…great activity!

I took two days to finish this activity.  I have a class of 18, and I needed to take my time with small groups of two to three kids at once.  We also had to really practice using small amounts of glue so that our pages wouldn’t stick together.  If you know PreK kids, you know that using a small amount of glue can be very challenging!  I am so happy that I decided to break it into two days-it was so much more enjoyable for me, and the kids got a lot more out of it.  
More Gingerbread coming tomorrow!
Please check out my gingerbread lesson plans, center activities, and dramatic play sets on Teachers Pay Teachers!  Just follow the links below!