Gingerbread

"Run, run, run as fast as you can. 

You'll never catch me, 

I'm the gingerbread man!"

This week we began our Gingerbread Unit! 

On Monday we read, "The Gingerbread Man." The kids loved this story and chimed in during the parts of the story that read, "Run, run, run as fast as you can. You'll never catch me, I'm the gingerbread man!" After the story we played gingerbread math and fine motors games. The children practiced their counting skills by rolling the dice, counting the dots, and decorating the gingerbread man with the corresponding number of candies. To practice their fine motor skills the kiddos did a gingerbread color sorting activity using pom-poms and tweezers. 

On Tuesday the kiddos made gingerbread play-dough! We used this as an opportunity to practice a variety of skills and learn some new skills. We began with reading the play-dough recipe. This reinforces that print has a purpose and teaches units of measure. We also talked about the properties of the materials (dry, wet, liquid, powdery, oil) which teaches various vocabulary and experience with materials. We discussed how it is important to follow the steps in the correct order - the order in which materials are mixed may affect the product!  Finally, we talked about how mixing materials together can make a change - a material may get wet, clump together, or dissolve. After making the play-dough the kiddos used their imagination and creativity to make gingerbread men! During play the children practiced social skills (asking to pass the rolling pin), developed language skills, and continued to explore the properties of the new material. 

On Wednesday & Thursday the kiddos made a Gingerbread Craft using foam sheets. The kiddos cut out their gingerbread man that was traced onto a brown foam sheet. Then the Pre-K kids decorated their gingerbread man with various foam sheet shapes and googly eyes. After the kids were finished decorating we incorporated math by counting the number of circles, squares, rectangles and triangles on their gingerbread man. The children had a lot of fun decorating their gingerbread man! One of the students added a lot of googly eyes and said that it was an, "Alien Gingerbread Man." 

On Friday we welcomed our Reading Buddies and Mystery Reader into our classroom. Our Mystery Reader was Junior Kindergarten teacher Ms. Massey! She read the book, "How to Catch Santa" by Jean Reagan.  The kiddos were very engaged and loved the book!

The kids love playing outside in the snow!

Next week we will continue our Gingerbread Unit!