Book of the Week: The Gingerbread Bear

Sorry for the delay in posting the Book of the Week this week!  I was home yesterday with a sick kiddo and  you know how that goes!

This week's book is "The Gingerbread Bear" by Robert Dennis.  I ordered this book from a recent Scholastic flyer that came home in my son's backpack.  I'm glad I did, it's a great addition to my gingerbread unit!  (I tried to get a link to Amazon for you, but they don't sell it yet ~ it's a 2012 release.)  This version of the classic tale is remarkably similar to The Gingerbread Man by Karen Schmidt in structure and plot.  The Gingerbread Bear runs away from many hungry characters:  a little girl and a sweet mom, three campers, a chipmunk and a wolf.  In the end, the clever ranger pretends that he cannot hear the Gingerbread Bear, drawing him closer to a dinner table.  You can probably guess the ending! :)

This book is LOADED with Tier 2 vocabulary words:

• clever
• sweet
• hibernating
• paws
• wide
• roared
• screamed
• campers
• chipmunk
• approached 
• dare

As with the other gingerbread books I've read this month, I created pictures for my story stick using Lesson Pix:

I couldn't find icons for gingerbread bear, park ranger, or camper, but Lesson Pix makes it easy to add your own photos.  We use the story stick for sequencing steps in the story and for retelling the story.  Since I had all the vocabulary for this story in my "tray" on Lesson Pix, I very quickly created pattern strips and stick-puppets as well:

Pattern Strips

Were you wondering about Gingerbread Bear's poem?  Here it is:

Run, run, try if you dare.

You can't catch me.

I'm the Gingerbread Bear!

I drew this Gingerbread Bear to introduce the lesson and so that kids could take turns trying to say his poem.

Have you seen this book yet?  What do you think?

Book of the Week: The Gingerbread Girl

The book I'm using this week in therapy is "The Gingerbread Girl" by Lisa Campbell Ernst. In this twist of the classic tale, a lonely old woman and lonely old man decide to make a gingerbread girl to keep them company.  They figure a sweet girl would never run away from them as her brother did in the past.  A chase ensues!  The gingerbread girl proves more clever than her bother, and more clever than the fox that got the best of her brother!  The book ends with all of the "chasers" getting together at the home of the old woman and old man and having a get-together (even the fox)!

While the gingerbread girl runs, she chants:

Run, Run

With a leap and a twirl.

You can't catch me.

I'm the Gingerbread Girl!

For this story, I used Lesson Pix again to create icons for my story stick:

I'm also using the Gingerbread Pronouns activity from my Gingerbread Speech and Language Unit.  We're targeting the pronouns "He," "She" and "they.  

We also are using Starfall's Gingerbread app ($.99 in the App Store).  This app allows you to create a gingerbread boy or girl while practicing shape/color concepts.  When you are finished, you get to see an animation with the gingerbread rhymes.  You can also do this activity on the Starfall Website free of charge.  If you're wondering, the app does have an additional activity that is not available on the website - Shapes Maze.  Also, you can save your cookie creations on the app.

Starfall Gingerbread screenshots

Have you used "The Gingerbread Girl" in therapy?  What s your favorite Gingerbread variation?

Gingerbread Gumdrop File Folder Game

I loved this gingerbread clip art from Scrappin Doodles so much I decided to create another quick activity...a Gingerbread Gumdrop File Folder Game!  You can use this open-ended activity for just about any target.  There are three pages in this download:

Page 1 & 2

Page 3

Simply print the two game-board pages and glue them to the inside of a file folder.

You can use a game die from another game or the gumdrop cards included in the file (a la Candyland).  The game path is short so I did not include double gumdrops like Candyland.

You can grab a copy here (TPT).  That's it! Hope you like it!  If you download, what goals will you be targeting with this game?

A Gingerbread FREEBIE for you!

Here's a quick open-ended game for you...Roll a Gingerbread Man!

This document comes with a dice graph:

A blank gingerbread man:

The pieces...there are enough on one page to make two gingerbread men.  So, only print 1/2 as many of this page as you print the body page.

And this is what it looks like completed...

You can grab the download here.  Please leave me a comment if you do download.  Are you doing a Gingerbread theme this December as well?

PS, Happy Cyber Monday!  Don't forget to clear out your TPT wishlist today and tomorrow.  Enter code CMT12 for a total of 28% off all products in my store :)

Gingerbread Speech and Language Unit

Phew!  Just finished up a new Gingerbread Speech and Language Unit.  I wanted to have this done in time to participate in the Teachers Pay Teachers Cyber Monday plus Tuesday sale.

All items in my TPT store will be 20% off.  If you enter PROMO CODE: CMT12, you will get an additional 10% off the discounted price, resulting in a total of 28% off!


Now... Here's my new Gingerbread Speech and Language Unit!  This is a 26 page document with four different games (5 if you count synonyms/antonyms as two games).


For starters, we have Gingerbread Synonyms and Antonyms:

In this game there are 20 synonym pairs (gingerbread boy/gingerbread house) and 20 antonym pairs (gingerbread boy/gingerbread girl).  I've included blank sheets of each set so that you can add your own words to expand the game.  You can use the cards in a few different ways:

• Provide several cards to a student as foils.  Read a card and ask the student to find the best synonym/antonym match.
• Play as you would play "Memory."  When a student finds a synonym/antonym pair, they get to keep the pair.  The player with the most pairs at the end of the game is the winner.
• Play as you would play "Go Fish."  Have students request "Do you have an antonym for 'girl'?" or "Do you have a synonym for 'town'?"

Synonyms

Antonyms

Next we have Gingerbread Pronouns:

For this game, there are large pictures of a gingerbread boy, a gingerbread girl, and a boy and girl together.  I like to attach these images to a small gift bag.   There are also 50 object cards in basic categories (shapes, colors, numbers, letters, animals, vehicles, toys, and food).  You may wish to have students use the object name or object category (e.g. “He has an apple” or “He has a fruit”).

Game play - Receptive:  Place object cards on the table.  Give instructions to the children – “Give a number to him,” “Give a ball to them.”

Game play - Expressive:  Have students take turns giving an object card to the boy and the girl. 

There are sentence strips included for students who omit those little words!  These include:

• “He has the ___” 
• “She has the ___” 
• “They have the ___” 
• “The ___ is his” 
• “The ___ is hers” 
• “The ___ is theirs” 

The third activity in the packet is a Gingerbread Barrier Game:

You can use this for simple following directions (e.g., "Put the girl between the trees") or as a true barrier game.  To play as a barrier game, you will need two copies of the background and two copies of the objects.  Put a divider (open file folder, large book, etc.) between two players/teams.  Have one player/team set up a scene using the game pieces.  Then they describe their scene to the other player/team, who tries to recreate the scene exactly.  The more specific the descriptions, the more accurate the recreation.  Once completed, you can remove the barrier and discuss what is correct or incorrect, discuss where communication breakdowns occurred, and brainstorm what the students could have done to improve the outcome.

Last, but not least, we have Beware the Gingerbread Pirate! Open-Ended Card Game.

Use with any target objective.  Place cards in a pile in the center of the table.  Have students take turns drawing cards.  If the student selects a gingerbread boy or girl, they get to keep it.  If the student selects a Gingerbread Pirate, they must return all of their cards to the table.  The player with the most cards at the end of the game is the winner.  There are numbers in the corner of the card game as well.  This way, you can choose to use point value rather than total number of cards to determine the winner.

I hope you can use this Gingerbread packet!  You can find it in my TPT store!  Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!

Book of the Week: "The Gingerbread Pirates."

Thanksgiving is Thursday and the stores are already decked out for Christmas.  That means December is right around the corner!  I have a few students who do not celebrate Christmas (or Hanukah for that matter).  Because of this, I tend to do a Gingerbread theme in December.  Some of the books I have do have Christmas elements, so I don't necessarily use all of them with each group.

To kick off the Gingerbread theme, and to join up with Lauren's Linky Party at Busy Bee Speech, I'm sharing my Book of the Week a little early (since I won't actually be using this book in therapy for a couple of weeks).  One of my favorite variations of the Gingerbread Man stories is "The Gingerbread Pirates" by Matt Tavares.

In this story, a boy and his mom bake cookies for Santa.  (If you do have kids who do cannot participate in Christmas activities, this book may  not be the best choice.).  The boy, Jim, makes a pirate crew and wants to save "Captain Cookie" and some of his mates.  The book tells of the adventure of Captain Cookie, who is trying to save the rest of his crew from being eaten by Santa, the cannibal.

The book definitely has some higher level vocabulary, including:  cutlass (sword), cannibal, prison, cliff, astonish, wounded, glittered, mantle, etc.  You can simplify it for the little ones, or expand on the vocabulary with the older students.

To accompany the book, I've created this open-ended game board:

I've also created some WH- question cards (2 pages) related to "The Gingerbread Pirates."

You can download both activities from my TPT store.  The graphics for both activities are by Scrappin Doodles.

Hope you like them!