December is always so much fun at school, but unfortunately, also crazy busy! When I taught first grade, there were always SO many themes I wanted to integrate into the curriculum. There’s gingerbread, Polar Express, reindeer, Christmas around the world… The list goes on. For the next week, I will share some of my favorite activities for December. First up… GINGERBREAD!
Comparing Different Gingerbread Stories
I know it’s not the prettiest gingerbread house around and to give you an idea of how old it is, I took it with an actual camera! But artistic perfection didn’t matter because the kids ate. it. up. (Ha! Get it?) I wanted to make it easy, so I just tore white paper and glued it on for frosting. Then I colored circles on the frosting. The squares are supposed to be windows.
As we read different versions of the Gingerbread Man, we filled in the squares. Since then, there has been a boom of even more amazing gingerbread stories. There are SO many out there, you could have a lot of fun with them.
Some things to talk about to get your kids thinking:
- How does the setting affect the story?
- How does the setting change the characters from story to story?
- Evaluate the ending of each story. Which ending did you like best and why?
- Were there any endings you didn’t like? Why?
- What characteristics describe the gingerbread chargers? (Provide text evidence) Do they all have these same qualities?
- How are these stories different? the same?
- Were all the stories’ events similar? Was there a pattern to all the books?
- Who is telling the story? (Most have a 3rd person narrator, but The Gingerbread Man Loose in School is from the perspective of the gingerbread.)
You could also make a Venn diagram.
Interactive Writing
This is hard to see but we did another interactive writing activity to demonstrate how to write a comparison paper. We worked on this as a class in first grade. The first two sections talk about the differences and the last part shows the similarities. You could compare two books as a class and then have them do their own comparing with two other books.
If you are looking for printable charts, venn diagrams, and student writing pages to compare gingerbread stories (like the ones shown above), you may want to check out my Gingerbread unit.
Gingerbread Freebies
Student-Made Stories
A follow-up activity is to have your students write their own gingerbread stories. This is one of my favorite writing lessons!
First, we write one together as a class so that I can model how to do it. Here are the steps I follow:
- I tell them to choose a setting for their story.
- Think of characters that would likely be found in a story with that setting.
- Use the same pattern of events to make the story.
- Decide how they want their gingerbread story to end.
This version is for beginning writers:
And this is for more experienced writers:
This more advanced version is perfect for 2nd/3rd grade but definitely doable for advanced first graders. There are so many great mini-lessons you could do for this!
You can download this activity FREE here.
Digital Word Building
I LOVE Boom Cards. These interactive, self-checking activities are perfect for independent practice. To read more about Boom Learning, read this blog post.
Click here for this free gingerbread resource. It’s perfect for those kids who are just starting to read and spell.
Gingerbread-Themed Classroom Management
Last year, I posted this idea for classroom management. We are always looking for ways to motivate our students, keep learning interesting and fun, but also manage the craziness. The holidays can get crazy. It’s so fun and I always look forward to it, but let’s face it, the kids can get a little too excited sometimes. 🙂 Here’s an idea to reward good classroom behavior:
Have your class work together to retell a story by having good behavior. Set out the parts of your favorite story. Here, I used Whimsy Workshop’s adorable clipart, but you could also just have your students draw these cards. (That way you could do for any story.)
When you want to reward the class for great (or “sweet”) behavior, add a story card to the storyboard. Call on a student to choose which card goes next. This way, you are reinforcing sequencing.
When you fill up the chart, you could give the class some sort of reward. Remember, a reward can be as simple as an extra recess. It could be a small gingerbread cookie. You could even be a youtube Gingerbread “movie”. If you search “Gingerbread” on youtube, a bunch comes up. Mostly there are people reading the book but for some reason this feels more special, right? Sort of a movie? The reward can be as big or tiny as you want. The point is to get them working together to build the story.
Download this idea with the template here.
Note: The clip art does not come with this. You can buy the gingerbread clip art here.
More Gingerbread-Themed Resources
For more gingerbread activities, check out my Gingerbread Unit:
This unit is packed! It’s geared toward 1st and 2nd grade. There are phonics activities, reading passages, writing prompts, and hands-on centers. It now also has Google Slides!
