The Gingerbread Man!

Fairy Tales are one of my favorite kinds of stories to retell, and I especially love telling stories with a refrain that encourages the children to chime in.  Of course these stories are also great for acting out.  There are so many different versions of The Gingerbread Man, and so many take-off stories like Gingerbread Baby, etc.  Here are a couple that I used.

The characters are often different, and sometimes the story ends in a different way, but the basic idea is that they bake a gingerbread man and he runs away.

Here are some pictures of the characters from one version that I used to make necklaces or headbands for kids to act out the story.  Sometimes I reduced the size of the pictures and mounted them on popsicle sticks to make stick puppets too.  You could also glue them onto an upside down paper lunch bag and make puppets that way.

Here is a little game that can be used to retell the story.  After coloring and cutting out the Gingerbread Man and Fox, fold them so they stand up and can “move” along the gameboard.

Here are pictures that can also be used to sequence and retell the story:

Along with our reading, acting out and retelling of this story we made cinnamon applesauce Gingerbread Men ornaments (equal parts cinnamon and applesauce – then cut with a cookie cutter).  We also cut out gingerbread men shapes and used paint and markers to decorate them.  Afterward. each child would write a short sentence about something or someone that he or she could outrun.

I would make a display of this writing along with their paper decorated Gingerbread Men.  On cooking day we sometimes made real Gingerbread men to eat too!

I know that I often felt like I was in this story right about this time of year saying  Run, Run, as fast as you can!

I hope you are able to slow down and enjoy this special time with your children!