The Gingerbread Man

Run, run as fast as you can, you can't catch me I'm the Gingerbread Man!!

This month I decided to do a theme based on a traditional story.  I thought The Gingerbread Man would be a good one to start with and I could link in lots of activities.

I started by introducing the story and a box with related props.  In the box we have a very cute gingerbread man, a fox, a horse, a cow, a hen and a dog (my eldest daughter collected beanie babies in the 90's so we have a huge box full of beanie animals which has come in so useful since I started childminding).  I also added some lovely shimmery tactile blue fabric for the river,  a spoon for stirring and a rolling pin for rolling.  I also put in various Gingerbread Man books so the children would have a variety to read (in the end they did prefer to read the same one which was the good old Usborne one).

The children really loved the props and getting involved with the story.

We did some number activities, here I printed and laminated some numbered gingerbread men and the children had to add the correct amount of buttons.

We also practised pegging our Gingerbread Men in a number line, focussing on ordering but also building up those little finger muscles ready for writing by squeezing the pegs.

We looked at space, shape and measure, I laminated a large Gingerbread Man and cut it into quarters and then removed a piece each time we said 'SNAP! ... He was quarter gone, SNAP! ..... He was half gone' and so on.  They really loved this and it also gave them a visual as to what quarters, halves etc look like.

We made Gingerbread Men out of play dough, lots of rolling and cutting.  We used buttons to decorate, (although I had to watch the babies closely as some were small), we also made marks with our fingers for eyes, buttons etc. We also talked about size.

I managed to get hold of this Gingerbread Man jigsaw which is great for problem solving and fine motor skills, but it also has picture story prompts which is great for re-telling the story to development communication and language skills.

 

Last of all, we couldn't do the Gingerbread Man without making some yummy Gingerbread yum yum.  I forgot to get some smarties or jelly tots to decorate but will remember that for next time.

We also decorated some templates of the Gingerbread Man with stickers, ribbon, googly eyes etc.


All in all, I am really pleased with how this month went.  The children really enjoyed it and they now love the Gingerbread Man story and I think it will a firm favourite from now on.