Mrs. Nelson was my kindergarten teacher. We read The Gingerbread Man Monday, went to lunch, and he was gone. I remember running around the school in kindergarten chasing The Gingerbread Man. Each day we’d find him somewhere in the building and bring him back to our classroom and he’d be gone again the next day. We met everyone in the school and went all over the building. I think that began my love affair with The Gingerbread Man.

The Gingerbread Man Works with Words

Of course, it lends itself perfectly to several word work ideas.

First, a look at onset and rime.

You can focus on the -an words (man, can, and pan).

Students can find the words in text and they can create more words.

The activity is easily differentiated: some students can match beginning sounds to pictures, some can match onset to rime to picture, some can use the rimes to write sentences about the story.

Wouldn’t it be funny to create a rime and make it fit into the story. For example, fan: The Gingerbread Man is so hot from running and he needs a fan. Plan: The Gingerbread Man had to escape the oven so he made a plan. Span: The Gingerbread Man wished the river had a bridge that could span the shores. You could even look at the -un rime (run, run, as fast as you can). You could pick beginning and ending blends (bread, smell, steps, dropped, flat, stop, snorted). You could look at Hard/Soft sounds of G. There are so many options.

Reading Comprehension

Students could listen/read a variety of books about The Gingerbread Man and complete soooo many activities.

The obvious one is comparing and contrasting…looking at two books.

BUT, there are so many more activities: sequencing, summarizing, story elements and character traits.

I love looking at the character traits of the gingerbread man…he’s an easy target like the wolf in the Three Little Pigs stories.

What does he look like on the outside? brown, happy, cookie, sweet…all the obvious things we can see.

What does he look like on the inside? scared, mean, fast, foolish…all the stuff we can’t. He’s scared he’s gonna be eaten, so he ran.

He’s mean because he taunts the other characters as he runs away. He’s fast because he gets away from almost everyone. And finally, he’s foolish for listening to the fox.

What are some other inside characteristics?

Poetry

Finally, we have a poem about the story. Students need to interact with words that tell a story.

Order the lines of text, fill in the sight words, and make a student book are all ideas you can build on the poem.

Enjoy The Gingerbread Man and let the students enjoy him, too.

Check out this set of The Gingerbread Man Word Work, Reading Comprehension, and Poetry activities.

The Gingerbread Man can be worked with for several reading comprehension units: sequencing, cause and effect, main idea, visualizing, asking questions, and summarizing.

My Reading Comprehension BIG BUNDLE contains activities for each.