FREE Gingerbread Activity and Ideas

Easy Gingerbread Man Activities

We have been enjoying all things Gingerbread lately - from multiple different versions of the story (see this post for a comprehensive look at all the different Gingerbread stories we read and compare/contrast!), to a ton of fun crafts from Oriental Trading. OT was kind enough to send me a few items to try out in my classroom, in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

We were part of a Gingerbread Exchange and sent these cuties to Maine to our partner class:

These Silly Gingerbread Magnet crafts were super easy for the kids to make - although I did use a glue gun to adhere the magnets to make sure they would stay since they were being shipped. Honestly, I could have used a template and had the kids make their gingerbread out of construction paper etc., but I was way short on time! This craft took about 15 minutes from beginning to end, required no prep and very little clean up. Best of all, I didn't have to wait for them to dry before mailing lol!

We've made pattern bracelets using these cool Gingerbread themed beads and chenille stems:

 They thread onto the chenille stems so easily! My only qualm about these is that there are way more "candy" pieces than gingerbread men, but I just told my students they could only have 1 gingerbread bead per bracelet and it was all good! This is a great fine motor activity!

Today we wrote about which version of the gingerbread man story was our favorite and then made these cute hallway display Gingerbread peekers:

Again, super easy for the kids to put together, and an easy-peasy writing display for me to hang in the hallway! We have so many activities this week. including Ornament Night tomorrow where the families will be coming to make ornaments and have hot cocoa and cookies. I had to have fabulous, seasonal displays for the hallway, without a lot of time or money spent on them, and these will look fantastic in the hallway, only took 20 minutes to put together, and will showcase our writing skills - it's a win all the way around!

The sweetie on the right used her brown "hand" piece as her nose, but its all good, the pack has enough extra pieces that these "oops" moments are just fine! 

Oh and these stickers are heading to Writing Center to encourage some story telling - I can't wait to read their sticker stories!

Finally, check out these adorable gingerbread erasers!

Not only can my kids sort and pattern with them (I added a set of them to our Math Boxes) but I also made these super cute (and free!) ten frames mats and cards to go with them!

You can grab them for free by visiting my TPT store here!

Now I'm off to prep for our Christmas party which falls on Thursday - the same day my 3 year old has his Christmas program! This means we will have to have the fastest clean up in the history of Christmas parties everywhere in order for me to make it to his day care on time. Which means more activities and fewer sticky, sugary treats! Of course Oriental Trading is helping out with that too - just check out their Pin The Nose on the Snowman game!