Gingerbread Man Hunt

Throughout the season we did tons of gingerbread activities.  Today we made a gingerbread cookie and of course when we went to get him out of the oven he had run away!  After a chase around the building (he left us lots of great clues), we found him back in our classroom!  What a tasty snack!  He was so easy to make.  We purchased the Betty Crocker gingerbread mix, a Wilton pan from Amazon, and we were on our way!  Cooking in the classroom is a great way to incorporate math skills, not to mention cooking is a life skill our little friends will need as they get older!

 

Discussing how to read a recipe (ingredients and step by step directions)

 

(mixing the batter up)

 

(I forgot to take a picture of him before we cut him all up!  We did lots of little squares because we shared with our fifth grade reading buddies who were coming up to listen to us read after snack!)

 

 

 

 

T is for Tree Stained Glass

I absolutely love doing stained glass projects with my kiddos!  Here are our Christmas tree ones!  Once you have the frame cut out, place it on a section of clear contact paper.  Then have your students put squares of tissue paper down on it.  We used Christmas tissue paper to make it look like trees with ornaments.  Add another piece of contact paper on top.  Trim excess contact paper off and hang in a window.

 

 

 

Peppermint Scented Playdoh and Rice

I love incorporating scented items into my classroom!  For December I added peppermint scented playdoh and peppermint scented rice.  The kids had so much fun!

 

 

Peppermint Playdoh

 

Ingredients:

1 c. flour

1/4 c. salt

1 1/2 tbsp. cream of tarter

1 tbsp. vegetable oil

1 c. water

food coloring

peppermint oil

 

Directions:

Bring 1 cup of water to a boil.

Add food coloring and peppermint oil to water.

Combine flour, salt, and cream of tarter.

Slowly add colored water to dry ingredients.

Add additional flour until desired consistency.

 

This recipe kept four children at a time happy, but I will definitely double it next time!

  

 

Peppermint Scented Rice

 

To scent rice I fill a gallon size bag about 2/3 full of rice.  I add a few drops of food coloring, scented oil, and water and then shake the bag of rice until it's coated well.  It works great!  

 



 

 

Gingerbread Activities

During the month of December we did lots of gingerbread activities.  We started the theme off by reading different versions of gingerbread books.  We read:

 

Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett

The Gingerbread Cowboy by Janet Squires

The Gingerbread Loose in the School by Laura Murray

Gingerbread Mouse by Katy Bratun

Gingerbread Pirates by Kristin Kladstrup

Keep Running Gingerbread Man by Steve Smallman

 

Each day we read a different version of the book. Then we summarized it. Every day after we read our new book and summarized it, we reviewed the summaries of the previous books. After we had read all the books each student came up to me (privately as to not change any student's mind!) and told me their vote. Then we met as a group and each student came up and put their gingerbread girl/boy (graphics by Krista Wallden of Creative Clips) over their favorite version. There was lots and lots of cheering as the books battled for first place! As we put them on we counted how many were in each column, compared more and less, introduced the word "tie", talked about how many more this one had than that one, etc. The graph is drawn on a Dollar Tree tablecloth.

 

 

One of the other gingerbread activities we did was to decorate our loft as a gingerbread house.  This is one of the first pictures, but we added "icing" to the window and lots and lots of other decorations, too.  I didn't get a picture of the final product!  (silly me!)

 

 

We finished up our Gingerbread theme with a Gingerbread Man Hunt!

T is for Turkey Stained Glass Project

I absolutely love doing stained glass projects with my kiddos!  Here are our turkey ones!  Once you have the frame cut out, place it on a section of clear contact paper.  Then have your students put squares of tissue paper down on it. Add another piece of contact paper on top.  Flip over and glue the turkey's body, eyes, beak, and wattle on. Trim excess contact paper off and hang in a window.

 

 

Train Names

Here's a great activity that would go well with the Polar Express if you are doing anything with that!  First we cut 12" X 18" gray construction paper in half to make it 6" X 18".  Then they drew two horizontal parallel lines and lots of vertical lines to make the tracks. 

 

Ahead of time I cut 2" squares for the engine, and cut a 1" square out of one corner.  I also cut a small window and triangle for the front of the engine.  In addition I cut LOTS of 1" squares for the cars, and two different size circles for the wheels.  I just colored the smoke stack with a Sharpie for the engine, instead of cutting out construction paper.

 

My students wrote the first letter of their name on the engine (capital letter) and then we counted how many cars they would need for the rest of their name and they wrote one lower case letter on each car.  Using glue sponges, they glued the cars and wheels down.  Then I drew 3-4 dots where they should glue down their cotton balls.  I did this because we've been practicing "a dot, not a lot", so this was the perfect opportunity for them to see about what size glue dot they needed!

 

 

 

 

Here's a close up of the train I got the inspiration from.  I'm sorry I can't give credit to the original poster, but it only links to the image and doesn't have any identifying information.

 

 

 

Five Senses

Last week's theme was Five Senses.  Surprisingly enough, this might have been my favorite theme so far!  We had so much fun!  The best thing I did was purchase My 5 Senses Centers and Circle Time for Preschoolers by Jamie White from Play to Learn Preschool.  She had some great activities which went well with some of the things I had!

 

 

 

Every day we sang a song, watched a video, and did a sort.  We also had a special activity planned for each sense.  Check out my other blog posts to see what we did each day!