December is here! We read three different books about gingerbread men.  We read, The Gingerbread Boy, The Gingerbread Girl, and The Gingerbread Baby. The children made predictions of what was going to happen to the gingerbread as we read through the story. We also talked about the similarities and differences of each story. We made our own gingerbread people both paper and real cookies! The children enjoyed smelling the gingerbread and trying to describe the scent in words. Some suggested that it smelled “spicy.” When we baked our gingerbread, they came out a little funny looking, but we discussed that baking is like an experiment and you never know how it is going to turn out. It is about the experience not about how “pretty” the end product looks. In the end, all of the children agreed that the gingerbread tasted delicious even though they didn’t look exactly like the ones in the books. The cookies ended up being a bit hit! All the children enjoyed the taste of the gingerbread.

In “The Gingerbread Baby,” the boy, Matti is able to catch the baby by making a gingerbread house that attracts the baby who ends up loving the house. For a craft, we made our own gingerbread houses with a gingerbread baby standing in the doors. Hello 

The children took wonderful care of our stuffed animal puppies. They set up the dog beds to be nice and cozy for the puppies. They also pretended to be vets and gave “checks ups” to the sick puppies. 

The children also enjoyed playing with Little People toy buses while singing “The Wheels on the Bus.” 

We also worked on our hand strength with stretching rubber bands onto a leg board. This can help improve fine motor skills. 

With the weather getting colder, we discussed the importance of staying warm when playing outside in the cold. The children dressed the felt gingerbread man with socks, boots, snow pants, a winter jacket, gloves and a winter hat.