Gingerbread Week

This blogging thing sure is hard! I never imagined how difficult it would be to get started and keep up! But here it is, a day late (ok, month) and a dollar short but here are some of the activities we did for our always fun and always enjoyable Gingerbread week!

Of course we completed our semantic feature chart comparing several gingerbread stories including The Gingerbread Man, The Gingerbread Girl (my personal favorite) and The Gingerbread Baby. Something else I like to include around this time is a listening comprehension activity The Cookie Girl by David Novak.  You can purchase this MP3 from Amazon or here is a YouTube video of him reciting this story at an elementary school in San Diego.  But that is another day and another post.

We also sampled gingerbread men to build that ever-so-important background knowledge of what exactly gingerbread is and what is more fun than snack turned into a math activity? (Well, I can think of a few things actually, one of which I will show you further down!) Here is our chart. One of our daily routines for snack is “Wait for your friends!” I simply told the children to take one bite from their gingerbread man and then put him back down.  Then I revealed the graph and the children placed a sticky note with their name on the corresponding column. We ate our cookies and compared our data. I have seen many teachers distinguish on the graph right leg, left leg, right hand, left hand, etc. but I like to keep it a little more basic so there is more but less data to compare…if that makes any sense. 

Since we were getting closer and closer to winter break, I wanted to make sure the last day before the last week was super fun and exciting to draw them back that Monday before break. Here is where the real fun began.

I first posed the question, “Why didn’t the gingerbread man jump into the river?” I allowed the students to make and record their predictions. Then, we retold the gingerbread man story together but when the gingerbread man encountered the river, I plopped a real gingerbread man into my fish tank. If you did this experiment, of course you could use any bucket or tub you had on hand. Treasure #2 sadly passed away last year and so this is what I had handy. I like using something clear so the students can really see what is going on. This could also be incorporated into a science lab for the week and the students could complete this in small groups or however you see fit!  We then let Gingy sit in the tank while we worked on some other activities and kept a watchful eye over him. After some time, Gingy appeared to be floating along just fine until I reached my hand in to help Gingy out of the “river.” MUSH! The children then recorded what really happened. This illustration cracked me up!

Finally, it was time to break out the best activity of the week. I gave my first crack at a S.T.E.M activity (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) and created my Gingerbread STEM Activity. 

We wrote down the problem the gingerbread man was facing. Then it was time to learn what materials would be available. Groups were made and the students discussed their different ideas to develop a plan. They were allowed to “shop” for materials (straws, tape, tin foil, and cups) as I had limits on certain ones. For example, they were not allowed to request more than two cups. They got to work and once they were finished with the vessel as a team, we tested its ability to float and once that task passed inspection, we allowed a new Gingy to board.

Some worked the first try.

And some of the other Gingys weren’t so lucky. Life sure is rough when you are a gingerbread man (ok, sugar cookie).

Teams who were successful got a small prize (a sugar cookie version of a gingerbread man to eat) and teams who were not were given a chance to revise and rebuild. Ultimately everyone got to eat a sugar cookie Gingy and fun was had by all. It was so exciting to see the groups of students working so hard and getting along together in their cooperative groups!

We came back together, shared our results, and recorded our data. I was really impressed with some of the boats and am excited to complete more S.T.E.M. activities in the future!

What are your favorite activities to do for the Gingerbread Man?