Gingerbread Man Unit

The Gingerbread Man unit was one of the my favorite ones to teach! There are so many ideas and materials which can be printed or used as inspiration. First, I wanted to create the Gingerbread Man atmosphere in the classroom, so I made the bulletin board for the play area:

You can see the Gingerbread Man doll I sewed for the kids to play pretend with. On the left side of the bulletin board are recipe cards for making gingerbread cookies. My students really enjoyed baking them pretend in the play kitchen. 

Story sequencing skills were a major focus of this unit. We practiced retelling the Gingerbread story at circle time using visuals and puppets, in small groups using the WH-question flip book, and during unstructured play time using puppets and pretend play.  At the end of the unit, students completed a sequencing project which required them to cut out sequencing cards, glue them in order of occurrence and color them.

Another activity which students enjoyed tremendously was the Where is Gingerbread Man? Power Point. I put this together by taking photos of my classroom and pasting a clip-art image of the Gingerbread Man in different locations throughout the classroom. This served as an opportunity to practice prepositions! Everyone's favorite slide was the silliest one of the Gingerbread Man on the potty  :-)

Morning greeting activities

How do you start your circle time routine?
I have used "get-to-know-me" songs like: "My name is Ms. Dina, Ms. Dina, Ms. Dina, my name is Ms. Dina, and who are you?"
Last year, students had laminated cards with their photos (with Velcro on the back) on their seats when they came to circle and when they saw their name displayed, they would come up and stick their name under it.
During the snowman unit, I had each student draw a part of the snowman as I called their names.
This year, I have been using Questions of the Day as a greeting activity. Kids "vote" for the answer using their name cards.