Gingerbread!

Flash back to some gingerbread fun!  December has been such a wild month, I haven’t had much extra time.  My husband is working on his MBA and has also been travelling like crazy for work, so I’ve had full time mom duty!  Add in the holiday dance recital, Christmas shopping, and life in a Kindergarten classroom in December, and you’ve got one tired lady! 

So, here are some of the centers we did during the month of December…

All of these activities are from my Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice Gingerbread unit. 

I’ve put in a sale for the next 2 days if you would like to scoop it up for next year!

I started working on some super fun Gingerbread response activities, but guess what?  I didn’t finish them! I’ll TRY to finish them over break, so you can have them for next year.  They’re all common core aligned and will be great for a study of the gingerbread books anytime!

In the meantime….

Gingerbread Part 3!

Yes, I know this is a bit late, but file it away for next year!  We kept it simple this last week, since we did have a 4 day week!!

Literacy Centers:

The kids drew a peppermint from the candy jar and used real candy peppermints to push out the sounds in the word – sorry, you can’t see the peppermint mat in the picture!

This was a super simple beginning sound dice game.  The kids just rolled the dice and wrote the beginning sound.

Keeping it super simple with Julie Lee’s sound sort.

This center also game from Julie.  The kiddos flipped over the tree cookies with a spatula and wrote the beginning sound of the picture on the reverse side.

Here’s the graph that we did for our “what part did you eat” lesson.

This was SUCH a hit!  I have been using Julie Lee’s “Build your Rainbow” positive reinforcement system since the beginning of the year.  I love it, and the kids love building their rainbow.  For the last week before break, I thought we could up the anty a bit.  Throughout the week the children could earn pieces to their gingerbread boy or girl!  They loved it! Kids that had lost their interest in building rainbows were suddenly much better behaved.  On Thursday, I made sure everyone had all of their pieces on their gingerbread by the end of the day.  I’m already brainstorming other themes that I can use throughout the year!

This is the gift that the children brought home to their parents.  We made the snowmen in art class and the handprint reindeer were a cinch to make. 

Here are our math centers for the week:

The children drew a gingerbread card from the basket and write the three numbers that came next. 

Here they counted the number of candies on the house and graphed their results.

We sequenced numbers by 5s.

And we played a fun color word/number game from Julie Lee!

And here are the gingerbread retelling cards that I promised! I THINK all the cards are there – it’s been a while since I last looked at them – my brain has been on vacay! Would love to hear from you if you download them!

Gingerbread Part 2

Last week, we were still going strong with our gingerbread adventures!  Here are some of our centers!

Literacy:

We practiced writing our alphabet neatly and then matched gingerbread felt pieces to the matching uppercase felt house.  We even practiced putting them in ABC order!

 

Ooohhh….this one was SO much fun!  The children stamped sight words into gingerbread playdough and then wrote the word they stamped.

The children hunted for missing gingerbread boys around the room and solved the letterbox puzzles.  Those gingerbread boys can be tricky!!

We pulled “candy” out of jar and listened carefully for the ending sound.  We dobbed the correct ending sound.

This is our weekly pocket chart center.  This one is from Julie Lee’s gingerbread unit.

 

Math Centers:

At this center, the children rolled a double dice (you can’t see it in this picture!), counted the number of dots and then counted that many candies onto the gingerbread man.  Then they graphed what they rolled by dobbing the correct number.  The candy is from a Lakeshore counting box.

At this center, the children practiced counting by 10s and sequencing the numbers.

Here the children measured different size gingerbreads with peppermint and gumdrop “rulers.” 

The next 2 centers are also from Julie Lee’s gingerbread pack.

We also got to decorate our gingerbread cookies! Shoot! One of them ran away – more on that on another day

I made this little planning sheet for the kids to plan out how they wanted their cookie to look.  It was quite successful – no mounds of candy in one spot here!

If you would like the planning sheet, you can download it below!