First Day Activities with the Gingerbread Man

Well summer is officially ending and everyone is scurrying to their classrooms to prep for back to school. How do you spend your first day back at school with the kiddos? Do you spend most of the day going over rules and procedures? If you do, DON'T! Why don't you save all that nagging and boring stuff for the 2nd day of school. Okay. Okay. I know you can teach rules and procedures in a fun way and I hope you do, but why not make that 1st day fun and engaging for your new little ones.

I have been doing First Day Activities with the Gingerbread Man since my first year of teaching. I can't take credit for the whole idea. I am not even sure where this idea originally came from. I do know that a very experienced, veteran teacher who is amazing at what she does taught me about how students can create Gingerbread Man cookies, read the book and then go on a school tour in search for their precious missing cookies. This teacher was my mentor teacher and team teacher so she taught me a few tricks. I then added some cute rhymes as clues during our Gingerbread Man search and other goodies.
Then I came to Canada.... where guess what? My partner kinder teach also shared that they create G-man cookies & search for their cookies through out the school allowing the children to get to know the school. Obviously this activity has been around for years and all over different places. It's am OLDIE BUT GOODY I'd say!

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/First-Day-Activities-with-the-Gingerbread-Man-1938761

So you might be wondering what I have to offer then in the First Day Activities with the Gingerbread Man. Here's what it has to offer:

• A detailed description of each activity and how I use these in my classroom on the 1st day.
• A Gingerbread Man recipe sheet for yourself or to provide to parents
• A note from the Gingerbread Man that falls out of your book while you are reading it to your class letting them know that their cookies are missing.
• Rhyming clue notes for you to read as they are posted around the school so that the children can guess where their missing G-man went.
• A Gingerbread Man & Girl for each child to decorate using materials of your choice, as well as a strip to create their own sentence.
• A G-Man reader.
• A G-Man class book.
• A G-Man hat so that their parents will ask them about it & also helps the children remember what they did on their fun-filled 1st day.
• A First Day of School Newsletter that is editable to tell the parents all about the fun their child had.

Some years I choose to provide the children with a construction paper cut-out of a Gingerbread Man cookie to decorate instead of the white printed sheet.

Here are a few of books we read the first day of school and through out the first week that relate to our Gingerbread Man hunt.

Words cannot describe the look on each child's face once we open the oven and discover that their cookies are missing. It's pure heaven!

At last! We find our cookies in the principal's office. What better way to get to meet and know your school principal on that first day of school. :)

The children also create a self portrait on the first day. This is a wonderful keepsakes for their class portfolio that they get to bring home at the end of the year.

Just creating her Gingerbread Man hat.

I don't set rules for how children decide to decorate their Gingerbread Man. It's a free for all on the decorations and I love to see what they create! We have a lot of fun on our first day of school and I hope you do too!

Back to School with the Gingerbread Man

 I never thought going back to work after a year maternity leave would be so difficult. I have to admit. I cried myself to sleep the night before I went back to work for our first professional development day. I never thought I would be one of those emotional moms but my baby girl gets to me. The first morning I was trying to get ready to go to work my baby girl kept wrapping herself around my legs.

We started school this past Thursday. I am teaching kindergarten and grade two this year. Tuesdays and Thursdays are my days to teach grade two. I am lucky to have a fabulous grade two teaching partner that teaches the class Mondays, Wednesdays & Friday while I am teaching kindergarten. Since my teaching partner has been teaching grade two for many years she is an expert and had everything set up for our second graders Thursday.

Isn't this classroom bright, fun and inviting? My teaching partner set up the classroom. She has always had such a fun classroom.

 I love how organized and fun this classroom is. If you were a student wouldn't you love to learn in a classroom like this?

 My teaching partner introduced a fun get to know you skittles game to the class. Each student got to pick two skittles and for each colour there was a different question for them to ask. For example, if a student picked a red skittle then they could tell us their favourite food. The students really seemed to like it.

 This is my "I survived the 1st day of school" face! No matter how long you've been teaching I feel like there's always a reason to celebrate a successful 1st day of school.

Now, on to meeting my kinders on Friday. I had my parents fill out this student information form which you can find in the Let's Get Meet the Parents Ready.

We are so lucky that we have staggered entry for our kinders. This Friday I only had 12 of my kinders and this Wednesday I will have the other 10 kinders come for their first day.

After coming in the classroom and playing with play-doh, we start our morning by making & baking gingerbread man cookies. 

We then go back to the classroom to read The Gingerbread Man. While reading The Gingerbread Man a letter falls out from the gingerbread man. The letter states that we can't catch the gingerbread man.

After reading the letter we then had to go search for our gingerbread men. We searched the gym, library, playground, music room and the office. We finally found our gingerbread man cookies in the principal's office.

 On Friday students drew a self portrait.

 Students also created a gingerbread man hat.

 We had fun creating a gingerbread man craft.

 We ended our day taking a photo for their first day of kindergarten.

All of the first day of school gingerbread man activities can be found here. 

Make Your Masterpiece

It's week 3 of the #tptsellerchallenge & I recreated our first day of school activities that I do each year with my class.

Okay. Let me start off by asking... Does anyone else still keep or organize their weekly activities in large tan envelopes? I didn't think so. Here it goes. I will admit it. I do! I'm totally saying this with my hands covering my face now. lol. Whew. That kind of feels good to get of my chest but it's all changing this year. Where am I getting at with this? Well most of the activities I do with my class are from when I created them in handwriting (oh yes I did- face hiding in my hands again) or from the computer in arial font and very plain. How did lessons or activities exist before learning how to create resources with cute font, great graphics and TPT or TN? My goal this year is to recreate all my activities and resources in my large tan envelopes. My goal is to turn them into masterpieces.

 

First Day Activities with the Gingerbread Man is my first masterpiece that I am pulling out of that large tan envelope. I haven't decide if I am going to start filing my lessons & activities for each week in sheet protectors in a binder or in these plastic file storage containers. I would love to hear how you organize your originals prints, lessons & activities so please share. :)

 

You can get the First Day Activities with the Gingerbead Man HALF OFF for the next 24 hours.

Looking for some first day of school activities that will allow your students to explore, build friendships and make memories? The First Day of School Activities with the Gingerbread Man will allow your students to explore the school during their hunt for the Gingerbread Man, build friendships as students search together, and get to know some of the staff while on their search. Students will go home after their first day of school eager to tell their parents all about the fun they had and excited to come back to school the next day without being scared. Students also enjoy baking gingerbread man cookies, decorating a gingerbread man craft, reading their gingerbread man reader, creating a gingerbread man classroom and creating a gingerbread man hat.

 

My students absolutely love (like puffy heart-love) searching for their missing gingerbread men. It's so much fun to see their faces light up when they help solve the riddle as to where the clue takes us next on the search for their cookies. This is one of my favorite activities to do with my students.

 

Have a masterpiece to share? Go check out these lovely ladies and link up.

 

 

 

Rrrr... Umm...1st Day of School Part 2

So I am waaaay behind on my blogging. Sorry guys.... It's been a rough, busy and confusing last 2 weeks in my life. This past week was our first full week of school and by full week I mean the 2 days I had my kindergarten class since the kids only come Mondays, Wednesdays and every other Friday. Since I am used to teaching kinders 5 days a week I knew I would have to cut back a lot of what I do & I did or at least I thought I did! Boy oh boy, I feel like what I had planned for this past week can carry on into this upcoming week which it looks like it is. I guess I didn't cut back enough. Two days just isn't enough time to teach and do activities that I want to do! Talk about messing up my planning... I was planned for the next 3 weeks but now that I evidently planned to much for each day I need to go back and adjust. I am so happy to say that I have one fabulous class this year. Of course there is always one or two free spirits in every bunch but I know that given a few weeks in school those will wind down.

 

We had staggered entry so on our first day with 12 of my students I had completely forgotten to take photos. Good thing we had a first day part 2 with the other 11 kiddos because I remembered to take some photos. I still didn't take as much as I should have but you know that first day is crazy, especially with little ones. I think next year I'll have a parent stay all day the first day just to take pictures for me. :)

DAY 1

We made a gingerbread man craft after going on our search around the school looking for our gingerbread man cookies.

We colored our gingerbread man for our gingerbread man hat.

 

FIRST WEEK

This week we read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. Our theme was an All About Me theme and focused on our names. We also learned about the letter Pp. Talk about a BUSY 1st week. Eekkk!

We spelled our names with foam letters and counted the number of letters in our name.

We made a pig to reinforce the sound of Pp. These pigs will go up in the hallway in about 3 weeks when we begin our Farm Unit.

We played with our new friends.

We completed a letter Pp sort.

 

You can grab yourself a FREE Pp Sort here that my kiddos also did.

 

I know many of you are at least a month or weeks into school. I hope y'all had a smooth transition.