After completing our OWL unit on Friends, we began our Gingerbread unit. This literacy unit was based on several Gingerbread books, activities, songs and poems. The children compared books for differences and similarities between the stories, characters and story endings. We also decided to decorate the outside of our classroom to look like the gingerbread houses that we had read about. All of the planning and decorations for outside of our classroom were done by the children! |
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 Michelle and Max research some ideas for our gingerbread house on Mrs. Shields' laptop.  Seamus makes a pattern on his lollipop for the door decorations.  Max and Jayden help out with the decorations. Max tells Michelle he can help her with the wreath. He traces a cup to make circle ornaments to add to the wreath.  Cassie adds some glitter for snow so that "it's sparkly like the house that Mattie made in The Gingerbread Baby!"  Michelle and Osawese finish the door and attach it to the Gingerbread House!  Max became the "candy cane expert!", a title which he thought was very funny!  Jayden uses a stencil to trace and decorate a gingerbread man. "I am going to cut these out for our house!", he says  We loved reading Gingerbread Friends by Jan Brett. We decide to each make a gingerbread person for our Gingerbread Friends Bulletin Board outside of our classroom. Calum is adding details to his Gingerbread Boy at the Art Studio.  Sienna and Summer like the gingerbread dough. Summer thinks, "It smells like gingerbread!"  Caroline is making a Gingerbread Family, while Seamus says, "Mmm, I can smell the aroma of gingerbread!"  Vasilia uses the spatula to get her cookie ready for baking!  Ethan gets a tray of cookies ready for baking.  During Math Groups, we have some Gingerbread math activities! Janeudy and Iyanna play "clear the cookie tray". They take turns rolling a dice and removing the designated amount of cookies from the tray!  Caroline and Vasilia play a gingerbread matching game. They turn over one card with a numeral and try to find another card with the right quantity of dots to match the numeral!  Summer and Michelle decorate gingerbread cookies at the Art Studio. Summer is carefully applying icing just like she noticed in The Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett! Michelle is adding sprinkles and marshmallows to her icing.  Adam watches Seamus for some inspiration on decorating their gingerbread cookies. Room 107 is looking and smelling like a gingerbread bakery today!  Janeudy and Cassie both add some skittles to their designs! Cassie says, "You can use these for eyes or buttons!"  Shawn'ae works carefully on her cookie adding a big icing smile!  Mia and Sarah put some yummy toppings on their cookies.  Sienna finishes her masterpiece. Be careful your Gingerbread Boy doesn't run away like the one is the books that we read, Sienna!  Finally it is time to eat our Gingerbread Cookies. Everyone thinks they are delicious!  Several children decided to make a trap in the Block Area to catch our runaway Gingerbread Boy. They built a couple of different rooms and put down brown and tan colored paper cut up to look like gingerbread cookie crumbs and pieces so it would lure the Gingerbread Boy back. Such Smart Cookies in Room 107!!  Room 107 Bakery is open again, and this time we are building and decorating Gingerbread Houses! Jonathan and Kat are getting ready to put on the frosting to attach the gingerbread cracker walls to the house.  Calum and Caroline are busy at the Gingerbread House Construction Site!  Ethan thought that we should open a Gingerbread School in the Dramatic Play area. Several children offered suggestions for materials that we needed at the school. Seamus suggested that we needed a nurse's office at the Gingerbread School. Ethan and Summer make a visit to the nurse's office while at the Gingerbread School.  We found another clue from our Runaway Classroom Gingerbread Boy in the Cafeteria! Miss Alison reads the clue that he left there.  Seamus, Ethan and Mia build a sleigh in the Block Area  Sarah, Michelle, Vasilia and Mia are excited to receive their gifts at the Holiday Family Get Together! Don't forget to read to your "Read To Me Bears" girls! |
 Caroline and Cassie make some tops for lollipops to add to the gingerbread house. They think that glitter would make them look sparkly, like snow!  Michelle makes a wreath like one that she saw when researching gingerbread houses online.  We need lots of roofing tiles for our gingerbread house, and Caroline and Sienna are busy at our roofing construction site!  Michelle asks Mrs. Shields for her laptop again "cause I want to look at the doors on a gingerbread house!" Osawese offers to help, too, and they are made the Facilitators for the gingerbread house door project.  Vasilia and Max work on the gum drops. They decided that they need some glitter so it will look like they have snow on them, too!  Cassie was inspired by Max to make some more candy canes to attach to our Gingerbread House!  Seamus and Max are putting the finishing touches on the gum drops for our classroom Gingerbread House.  Mia is at the Block Area. "Mrs. Shields! I made a gingerbread man from the blocks!" Very creative, Mia!  The art studio gets very busy when Mrs. Shields makes some gingerbread play-dough! Kat and Adam are rolling the dough to make gingerbread cookies, just like in all of the Gingerbread books that we read!  Vasilia and Shawn'ae make the perfect gingerbread boy cookies with the cookie cutters.  Kat is making a Gingerbread Family also, and describes each cookie as "Mom, Dad and Owen, and there's me."  Kat puts a tray of cookies in the oven for baking. "It takes 8 minutes," she says.  The recipe says to bake for 8 minutes. Don't peek, Ethan! You know what happens if you peek before the cookies are done! Ask your child what would happen if we peek in the oven before the cookies are ready!  Ethan and Shawn'ae are partners for the "clear the cookie tray" game. Which team will clear their tray first?!  Mia and Sarah play a cookie matching game to match the correct patterns of toppings on the cookies!  Kat and Vasilia are excite to select their toppings and decorate gingerbread cookies that Mrs. Shields baked. The cookies look good enough to eat!  Caroline and Ethan work on their cookies together. We love to see each other's designs! No two cookies look exactly the same!  Jayden asks, "Do we have to wait until the heart party to eat the cookies?" Nolan add, "Yeah, mine's ready to eat now!" Sadly, Mrs. Shields says we should wait until everyone is finished decorating their cookies!  Max is finished with his cookie! Beautiful decorating job, Max!  Room 107 Gingerbread Friends!  "This tastes good!" Theo says. Theo may make a great bakery chef!  Oh no! The classroom Gingerbread Boy that we made ran away! We looked all around for him and Jayden and Calum noticed a clue that he left in the library!  Sarah, Kat and Cassie work on rolling out gingerbread playdough to make some cookie shapes and bake them in the oven.  Sienna's mom helped us to make our Gingerbread houses. Cassie adds some icing on the roof of her house, and Sienna's mom helps Jayden to attach his walls.  Adam and Sienna add some icing onto their houses to hold the decorations that they will add. They were inspired by the many Gingerbread books that we read!  Vasilia and Sienna take care of our classroom Gingerbread Loveys at our "Before Winter Vacation" Family Get together.  Yay! We found our Runaway Gingerbread Boy! Everyone is very happy that he is back. We are so happy for all the help that everyone gave us trying to find the Gingerbread Boy when he was away! Mr. P made announcements over the intercom asking for help, and Ms. Mahoney's K-2 class made signs and tried to set a trap to catch him.  All aboard for a ride on the sleigh!  Sarah, Michelle, Summer, Vasilia and Mia celebrate before leaving for December vacation. We love our Room 107 friends! |
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