Where Oh Where is the Gingerbread Man?

     Before my kindergartners went home yesterday, I read them the story, The Gingerbread Man, by Jim Alyesworth.  (I was amazed how many of them had never heard the story before.) This morning, I had a big surprise waiting for them. My kiddos were so excited when they came into the room to find gingerbread crumbs all over the counter and tiny brown footprints.  I flipped on my Elmo and SMARTboard and were they surprised. There was a note from the Gingerbread Man!  You should have seen the look on their faces.

     After reading the note together, they were ready to search the school to find him.  We brainstormed all of the places that he might be hiding and made a list.  

We decided to check the principal’s office first to see if he was there.  Luckily, my principal was in on it and had a little treat waiting for us.   They were so precious as we walked back to class looking here and there just hoping to catch a glimpse of him. I just LOVE this time of year!!!! 

When we got back to the room we watched a video on youtube of The Gingerbread Man https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5aUAxK1ec8&list=RDslidHnMR1yE

and talked about how the story was different from the one we read the day before.  We did a sequencing activity as a group on the SMARTboard and then broke into our center groups and did three different gingerbread man activities: a follow-up cut and paste story sequencing worksheet, Gingerbread Man Roll (rolling number cubes and adding them together to make a Gingerbread Man), and on the computers we visited two different sites, Starfall’s gingerbread man activity http://www.starfall.com/n/holiday/gingerbread/play.htm?f and a great counting activity on topmarks.com http://www.topmarks.co.uk/learning-to-count/gingerbread-man-game

It was a fun day and as they were walking out the door they were talking about where they are going to look for the Gingerbread Man tomorrow.  You will have to stop by to see where we look next!