You Can't Catch Me - I'm the Gingerbread Man!

I love having special themed guests visit our classroom throughout the year. The vice principal has  appeared as Johnny Appleseed, my practicum student as Cat in the Hat, my brother as King David...even my husband has been lucky enough to be John the Disciple.

Well... I decided to give these volunteers a break and invite a different special guest - The Gingerbread Man! I built it up throughout the day telling my students, "He said he was coming to visit today. I'm not sure when though..." Oh yes, I had my kinders going. They kept asking when he was coming and guessing as to which previously mentioned guest I had conned into helping me:  "Is he visiting before lunch?" "He's the principal - isn't he?"

I found the idea floating around on Pinterest and found the cutest clues to hide as a scavenger hunt. I used the following gingerbread man hunt created by Katie Mense on teacherspayteachers. Click on the picture to check out her great product.

 

 
My students freaked out when we arrived back at our classroom from art to find a note from the gingerbread man taunting us to find him. I was able to keep our "fast walking" around the school reletively quiet by telling them the gingerbread man would hear us and run away if we were too loud. He led us in quite the chase... library, office, music room, gym.... and finally back to his "favorite room" - our classroom!

Let me tell you - the excitement was high! We integrated math skills by tallying whether or not we should eat him....

It was a unanimous vote "YES"!

We all laughed when the last student added his tally mark and said, "Bye, bye, gingerbread man!"