Gingerbread Factory! (Freebies!)

We're going into week 2 of our gingerbread unit and we have been having so much fun! Take a look at the transformation of our Dramatic Play Center:

When I told my students that we would be transforming our Dramatic Play area, they came up with a list of items that they would need. Top on their list was a sign (they love reading this Environmental Print freebie). I drafted my daughter to make it for us and the kids were thrilled with it!

We added some simple cooking items from Walmart and the Dollar Tree, to convert our regular kitchen. The key to this was to provide real items - the engagement level shot through the roof when real bowls and wooden spoons were used versus the toy plastic ones.

The recipe book is also a must - the kids loved learning about following a recipe, and I love that they come over to have me taste their creations and say "I put some vanilla in this one!" or "Does it have enough cinnamon?" We are really expanding our vocabularies!

 Over the course of 3 days we rotated everyone through the center at least once so they could "bake a gingerbread cookie":

 

We used sequins, buttons, pom poms, stickers and lots of glitter and glue! Once we had all made a cookie, the cash register came out and it was time to purchase those cookies! Now we choose and pay for a cookie and then sit and eat it at the table while the "waitstaff" hover nearby, pushing more cookies!

We'll keep our factory open for another week - making more cookies and having a ton of fun ordering and paying for them! The best part about the center is hearing the interaction between the children and I'll often hear them break into song (we're practicing this Gingerbread Cookie song for our concert) or start reciting the lines from one of our Gingerbread Readers!

Come back tomorrow to see what we've been doing in math with our gingerbread theme! 

Now, on to the freebies!

First, the 2014 Winter Holidays Tips & Freebies Ebook is out! My contribution is on page 26 :) This is a must-grab because there are 50 pages of tips and freebies!

Next, a flash freebie for the next 2 hours! My new Gingerbread Rhymes pack! I had to use these adorable little gingies and what better way than with some rhyming practice?! Go grab it now and remember to leave some feedback love!

 

 

Cyber Sale Ideas & FREEBIE

Just a head's up that there are just a few more hours left for the Cyber Sale at TPT! You can save 28% off my entire store!

Here are  a few of my favorite packs for the season:

 Gingerbread Alphabet Match-Up - students match upper to lowercase letters or to a beginning sound picture card!

Gingerbread Skills Pack  - tons of Kindergarten Math & Literacy skills covered in this pack!
 

Gingerbread Fact Family Pack

Gingerbread Sight Word Game - all 220 Dolch words, 3 ways to play & extra blank cards!

 

Gingerbread Cowboy Roll & Cover Games - my students love Roll & Cover games & I love these graphics!

 

Christmas Ten Frames Pack - great ten frames practice! Includes 3 different themes AND print n go worksheets!

Winter Ten Frames Pack - great for January or if you can't do holidays!

Snow Much Measuring Fun Pack - tons of fun with lots of measuring concepts, including time. length, height, & graphing ! Here are some pics of it "in action":

 

 

And, here's a Gingerbread Friends graphing freebie!

I want to thank each of my followers for supporting me! It makes me so happy to share my creations with you. Your support means the world to me and my family! Without selling items on TPT I could not buy so much for my classroom nor afford the little "extras" for my own 5 children! Bless you!

Gingerbread Giveaways & Sale!

It's here! It's here! It's finally time to teach my Gingerbread theme! This is probably my favorite theme of the year! So much fun and a perfect excuse to eat cookies! Honestly, I think I have more gingerbread books than any 3 other themes combined - so many I'll be reading multiple versions each day just to get them all in before Christmas Break!

We'll be doing a bunch of gingerbread stuff with math too - of course the prerequisite graphing activities - which part of the gingerbread man did you bite first, do you like gingerbread yes or no, have you ever made a gingerbread house etc.  I can't wait to hear what my little pre-k friends have to say about gingerbread! This year, I even made some awesome readers to practice some of our early math skills while still giving us exposure to print concepts, rhyming and sequencing.

There are 4 readers in this pack:

Where Is Gingie? - an interactive positional word reader. Just attach the little gingerbread picture with a piece of yarn and students can practice putting him in the correct position on each page!

What Shape? - includes color words and the following shapes: circle, triangle, rectangle, square, rhombus, trapezoid, cylinder and cube. This one gives double practice with reading/identifying color words and identifying basic shapes.

5 Little Cookies - My students love stories like these - it's rhyme intensive, and repetitious, so they pick it up quickly, plus there's the basic subtraction factor as each little cookie runs away. You can print out the equations if you want to introduce the minus and equal sign with your littles too!

5 Cookies On A Tray - One of the skills we have to teach is ordinal numbers, even though OK doesn't really have a math standard to match it - it's one of those "introduce as you can" things lol. Although we hit it orally during calendar time, this reader will give them written word exposure!

The readers print two to a sheet to cut down on paper costs, and I even made word strips and sequencing pictures so you can print them out and put them in a pocket chart! Generally I introduce the story in a pocket chart and have students practice reading it for a few days before we do the reader.  With 4 readers we'll be set from now until Christmas! (we get out Dec 19th!)

This pack is on sale for 40% off until midnight (I generally discount everything I put on TPT for the first day, so you might want to follow my store to get notifications of new products!) You can also head over to my Facebook page for a chance to win the pack!

Speaking of giveaways, this one ends tonight and you could win a ton of fun winter packs including my Gingerbread Skills Pack! Enter here!

And, starting tomorrow, my entire store will be on sale 20% off for the Cyber Monday (& Tuesday) TPT sale! Use code  TPTCYBER for an extra 10% off the sale price for a total of 28% off!