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!"

Decorating Gingerbread Houses

I decided to tackle decorating gingerbread houses once again this year. As I laboriously tried to cut triangles from graham crackers (not as easy as one may think), I vaguely remember telling myself last year not to do this again. How come I only remember how much joy my students had when decorating them last year? I do not remember how much time - and hot glue it took beforehand. The librarian compared it to childbirth - "you forget the pain that led to the joy". Haha! After making it through "labor", the joy of seeing my kids decorate their houses was totally worth the 6am trip to Wal-Mart for more frosting and hot glue sticks. They frosted, sprinkled, and decorated to their heart's content. Some of them opted our of afternoon free choice time to keep loading the candy on their houses.

Before...

(Words of Wisdom: If you ever try this with your class, give each person their own bag of frosting, plat of candy, and cupcake liner with sprinkles. We all know that our kids can share, but we are choosing not to invite conflict to this party. )

After...

              Wow! Look at all that sugary goodness!

I always tell my class that the candy is old and bad for them if they eat it, because if I don't - they spend more time eating than decorating! I give each of them a little handful of "fresh" candy to eat before they start decorating so they aren't tempted.


This is a model from last year when I added "trees" for them to decorate.

Looks like poor frosty has a head wound!

How do you decorate gingerbread houses with your classroom? I'd love to hear your tips and tricks!