Keep Your Students Engaged and Learning Through December With Gingerbread

I love gingerbread. I can't get enough of it.

Every year my family and I make gingerbread cookie ornaments for our Christmas tree, gingerbread St. Nicholas cookies for St. Nicholas' Day, make gingerbread houses and read gingerbread stories during Advent. 

Gingerbread stories abound.The Gingerbread Baby, The Gingerbread Boy, The Gingerbread Man, The Gingerbread Man Loose in the School, The Gingerbread Cowboy and The Baker's Dozen: A St. Nicholas Tale are just a few.

Let's face it. Once December hits, we are all a little antsy. So...

Keep your students engaged and learning until the last minute before break with gingerbread. 

Start by having some fun with gingerbread stories. Pick a few different versions to read. Then, decide on some lessons. 

Here's a few ideas:

• Compare and contrast them.

• Students can practice their persuasive writing skills by "selling" a favorite version with a commercial or radio ad.

• Make gingerbread or have some cookies to share, decorate and have disappear.

• Take a gingerbread recipe and halve it, double it or quadruple it. What happens to each ingredient? Calculate how many cookies your new version will make.

• Write your own version.

• Change an ending or change all the endings.

• Have groups of students create a mystery together - The Mystery of the Missing Gingerbread Man (woman, baby, friends...). Then, trade and solve.

• Or, write a mystery as a class and give the clues to another class.

• Make gingerbread houses or have a gingerbread house competition (real or cardboard).

• Become a realtor. Put your gingerbread house up for sale. Take photos, create a compelling listing, write your realtor bio and prepare a sales pitch. Get the FREE Grading Rubric.

I'd love to hear your creative take on using gingerbread in the classroom. Share your ideas in the comments below.

Teach joyfully,

Lisa