Gearing Up for Gingerbread (& a Freebie)

I am so excited for our Gingerbread Unit that started today! Not only do I LOVE making gingerbread cookies (one of the few traditions I am adamant about during the winter) but it seems like every kindergarten teacher out there has done gingerbread men already this month. Which means.... I'm totally behind the curve... all my ideas have now doubled after seeing what others have one. It wasn't intentional but I'm happy for the coincidence!

We will be using the follow Gingerbread Men themed books:
(Click on the covers to buy your own copy from Amazon.)

  

 

Here is a peek at a few products we'll be using and few of my favorite inspirations from other bloggers!

We'll be brushing up on our rhyming words during centers with this adorable matching game from Limars Stars. 

We'll also be doing a new activity I create this weekend. Students Write the Room to complete their emergent reader. I made two versions for my kinders. One with the words filled in using a traceable font and the other with blank spaces. 

I am extra excited about this one because we've only done Write the Room once and the kids loved it. They were like little detectives running around searching for their next words. I can't wait to give this hybrid activity a try.  

Here are a few inspiration posts from other great bloggers!

Erica over at Erica’s Ed-Ventures did an awesome gingerbread man experiment with her first graders. She used a freebie by Abby Mullins, that you can get here but I think I will be doing a slightly adapted version that’s more on level with my kinders.

I got this awesome writing activity freebie from Lori over at Teaching with Love and Laughter. Prior to writing, we reviewed some of the characters from our book today and practiced our strategies for sounding out the words. I also snuck in some of our sight words to give us some extra practice.

(Apparently I forgot to "dot" the I! Oops!)

(How did they know I'm always running after that Gingerbread Man!?)

Julie over at Mrs. Lee's Kindergarten recently re-posted her gingerbread activities from last year. I absolutely lover her giant classroom gingerbread man activity. A giant classroom gingerbread man joined our classroom today as well (pictures to come!). 

Michelle from Inspired by Kindergarten has a post from 2012 that has some great ideas for learning verbs with gingerbread men. My pocket chart activity for the week was inspired by her post. The kids absolutely loved it today. They thought calling themselves gingerbread people was completely hilarious.

As promised, here is a little freebie for stopping by. 

Click on the cover or here to download. 

Enjoy!

  

This freebie includes 4 set of card to create simple sentences. 

Students unscramble the cards and record their simple sentences on one of two recording sheets. One has traceable sentences and the other is blank. 

Enjoy!