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Oh my goodness, it’s hard to believe that this first week is almost over! I hope this has been enjoyable for you guys so far – and NEVER stressful! If you don’t get to everything or even skip days, remember that is 110% OKAY! Just keep enjoying the moments whenever you can ❤️
I also wanted to say THANK YOU to everyone who shared their days, either in our FB group or over on Instagram! I’ve appreciated all the tags, shares, and (more than anything) getting to see your cute kids enjoying everything! It made me teary so many times!
Alrighty. Onto Gingerbread Day! Here are all the activities that my kids and I will be doing this Friday!
Are you visiting for the first time? You are still able to grab my free Christmas school calendar! You can download it below and you can also join our Christmas School FB group here 🙂 It is full of the most wonderful mommas!
Each special day on the calendar will get it’s own blog post – full of activity directions, printables, YouTube audiobook stories, and anything else to help make this EASY on you. Because the whole point of Christmas School is to pick what your kids would enjoy the most and then just have fun together. Don’t plan to do EVERYTHING (unless you guys are feeling ambitious that day 😉 ).
Keep reading below for more about Gingerbread Day!
Day #6. Gingerbread Day!
Here is what we are planning to do on Friday 🙂
Just a reminder that my kids are in 4th, 2nd, and PreK grades. If you have different ages and feel like what we are doing isn’t something your kids would be interested in, feel free to scroll below! I’ll add more activity ideas at the bottom of each blog post.
Activities
Today we’ll be doing a gingerbread house fingerprint painting, followed by a dissolving gingerbread science experiment! I also made this ABC gingerbread printable game that we’ll all play with my youngest! There is a blank version too, so I might print that out and write some sight words for my second grader and some multiplication/division problems for my fourth grader in each box. You could all play together but let each child have their own board with their own problems on it.
We’ll also use a lot of the extra activities below (at the bottom of this post) to learn about gingerbread house kit factories and the history of gingerbread cookies.
And yes, we WILL be making some gingerbread houses but not until Saturday when some of my siblings come up to visit for Christmas. Last year they had fun making gingerbread houses with my sister, so we thought it would be fun to repeat that again 🙂
#1. Fingerprint Gingerbread House Art Activity
I thought this would be a fun art project for the kids! You can paint the template completely or use a finger to leave gumdrop fingerprints for the roofline!
I also added a second page with a gingerbread man, woman, & some extra candy accessories. Kids can color or paint these too, cut them out, and glue them wherever they’d like next to the gingerbread house!
There is even a short poem about painting a gingerbread house, if they’d like to cut it out and add it to their page as well 🙂
#2. Gingerbread Man Dissolving Science Experiment
My kids had so much fun dissolving the candy canes, that I know they will enjoy doing this again! And I think this will be EVEN MORE fun, because they can taste the results of their experiment 🙂
There are three different worksheet options this time, depending on if your student want to draw or write in the boxes (and if you want to try other liquids).
I have NEVER tried this experiment before, so I’ll be testing it out along with you guys 🙂 Can’t wait!
#3. Gingerbread Game Board
I made this ABC board game for my boys when they were younger…I decided to turn it around and make a gingerbread man version!
There are printable player pieces included (although you can just borrow some from other games in your house). Easy to just print them out, cut, and fold to make them stand up!
ALSO – I added a blank version this morning so that you can fill in the boxes with sight words, CVC words, or even addition/subtraction/multiplication/division facts…to make this more adaptable for older kiddos. I think I’ll print out a sheet for each of my kids…we’ll still play together, but everyone will have their own board that they move their player on.
Snack
Bake some gingerbread cookies together today! I’ll be testing this recipe out, but definitely use your favorite gingerbread cookie recipe!
Books
(Note: I only skimmed these books, so be sure to skim it also if you want to make sure it’s something your family values align with).
Today we’ll be reading “Tough Cookie” written by Edward Hemingway and “Gingerbread Friends” by Jan Brett. You could also read, “The Gingerbread Man” by Gail Yerrill.
Here are the YouTube Read Aloud links for these books 🙂
Do You Have More Time? Here Are Some Extra Ideas!
#1. Build a gingerbread house! Use a kit, make it from scratch, or make mini houses using graham crackers!
#2. Go on a virtual field trip! Watch this video to see how gingerbread house kits are made in factories!
#3. Want to learn more about the history of gingerbread cookies? Watch this sweet video!
#4. Do your kids like the Bear Hunt song? Here is a version for Gingerbread man. 😅
#5. Do your kids enjoy drawing? Follow along with one of these cute cartoons from Art for Kids Hub!
I hope you guys have a wonderful day! I can’t wait to see everything you and your kids create and do! Check back soon for my Tree Ornament Day post 🙂
PS: If you haven’t grabbed my Christmas School calendar yet, you can download it below for free!
