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Books:
Hansel and Gretel ~
Dom DeLuise
Hansel and Gretel ~
James Marshall
Hansel and Gretel ~
The Brothers Grimm
Hansel and Gretel ~
Rika Lesser |
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Gingerbread
(tune: Mickey Mouse Tune)
Gingerbread, Gingerbread.
We are making
gingerbread we're as happy as can be.
For Christmas Day is
coming and we'll have a baking spree.
Peek into our
kitchen, be as quiet as can be.
We're cooking up a
secret, It's a house as you can see.
Gingerbread, echo (Gingerbread)
Gingerbread, echo (Gingerbread)
We make it and we bake it, Oh, it's fun!
Peek inside the kitchen, be as quiet as can be.
We're cooking up a
secret, it's a house as you can see.
~ Author Unknown
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Gingerbread House: Begin by giving each student a generous
portion of stiff icing on a sturdy plate. Then give them 4
graham crackers and have them stick them in the icing vertically
to form the 4 walls of their house. Help them to "glue"
the corners of the walls together with more icing. You can
either put the icing into cake decorating bags or try using a ziploc bag with the corner cut out. Once the walls are in
place, then they add the roof. Allow this to dry, then
decorate with candy. |
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Royal Icing: |
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Another Gingerbread House: An easier way to make a
gingerbread house might be to start with a pint size milk carton
as a base. (An even faster but non-eatible way is to
hotglue the crackers to the carton) Empty and wash out the carton.
Staple or tape the top closed. Add a dab
of icing to the bottom of the carton to secure it to a sturdy
plastic type
plate. (We turned our plate upside-down so that it was
more of a platform and had to lip to work around.) Use the icing to glue the graham crackers to the
carton to form the walls of the house and the roof. ( 3
full size graham crackers broken in half (not fourths) ... 4 pieces for the walls and 2 for
the roof) You may have to really stress to the children
NOT to break the crackers apart. For some reason, mine
kept doing this and it makes the walls of the house not so
smooth looking. Use the icing to fill in the cracks at the
corners. Then decorate using M&Ms, peppermint rounds and
tiny peppermint candy canes, Skittles, Fruit Loops, Life Savers,
etc. You can use a Hershey's Kiss for a chimney.
If
you'd like a shingle type roof, you can also "glue" on spoon
size Shredded Wheat squares to shingle the roof. Very
cute! Frosted Mini Wheats give you a snow covered roof. We
covered ours with Fruit Loops (in the model) and they're cute,
also. They give it a lot of color. You can use a Hersey's
Kiss for a chimney. After you're finished, spread more icing on the plate around the
house for snow or use flaked coconut. Create a walkway
with peppermint stepping stones or line it with peppermint
sticks. If the plate is big enough, you can turn a sugar
cone upside down and cover it with green icing for a tree and
then decorate it with M&Ms or Skittles. |
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Sequencing: After making the gingerbread houses my children
dictated the steps of how to create a gingerbread house to me.
We had about 5 fairly simple steps. I wrote these steps on
sentence strips and we put them in order in the pocketchart.
After reviewing them several times, I scrambled them and they
had to tell me how to get them back in the correct order. They
did pretty well, only getting one step out of order, but they
were able to find their mistake and correct it.
How To Make a
Gingerbread House
Get a milk carton
Put icing all over
the milk carton.
Stick the milk
carton to a plate.
Cover the milk
carton with brown crackers.
Decorate the house.
For my students who
are reading and working on sequencing sentences, I typed up the
sentences above and printed them out. After many
rereadings in the pocketchart with the whole class, I have these
students read the sentences on their paper to me. Then I
cut up their paper into sentence strips and mix up the strips.
They read the sentences, put them back in the correct order and
glue them onto a piece of construction paper.
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Canned Icing: Add cream of tartar to canned frosting to
stiffen it if you'd rather use that than the Royal Icing.
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Here is a
quick and easy gingerbread recipe. The mixing and the baking
are done in a 5-ounce paper cup. The finished product will be a
cup of gingerbread, not a gingerbread cookie. This recipe is
from Cup Cooking.
Preheat electric frying pan to 400. Place 3
tablespoons of
gingerbread mix in a paper cup. Add one tablespoon of water to
the cup. Stir well. Bake at 400, 15 minutes, or until done.
*Betty Crocker Gingerbread Mix has about 54 Tablespoons of
gingerbread mix in the package.
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Patterning: Use candies that you'd use to decorate
the gingerbread house to create patterns during Math time.
Ex.
big candycane, little candycane
right-side-up candycane,
upside-down candycane
candycane, peppermint
red gumdrop, yellow gumdrop
gumdrop, pretzel
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Sorting:
As a Center activity, provide a ziploc bag with an
assortment of different candies. Have students sort the
candy according to type, color, or texture (hard/soft).
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Toasty
Gingerbread House: Toast one and one-half slices of bread
for each student. Leave one slice whole and cut the second
slice in half diagonally. Spread both pieces with peanut
butter. Place the diagonally cut piece at the top of the
whole piece. This should form the house (the half piece is
the roof). Then use raisins and other types of candy to
decorate. If you soften and whip cream cheese, you might
be able to squeeze it from a freezer ziploc bag that's had the
corner snipped off to decorate the house. This is just an
idea that I came up with, but haven't tried. You could
also use canned cheese spread as well. This doesn't sound
too appetizing, but as we all know, if it looks good the kids
will eat almost anything! :) |
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Retelling:
After many rereading, walk your students through retelling the
story. I always go first on this one because I want the
children to see that you can add your own words and experiences
to the story and that you don't have to tell the story just like
it is in the book. This helps to break the ice with them
and you'll have more volunteers to start the retelling.
First I tell the story using the pictures in the book. I
flip to each page and tell the story up to the point in the
picture. After I finish, then I let the students take
turns doing the same. Some will get carried away and do
more than one page, but that's OK to. :)
Next, I tell them
we're going to retell the story without the pictures. And
again, I go first. Then I ask for volunteers. We did
this yesterday and one of my K students did a wonderful job
retelling the story without the pictures. Yeah! |
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Discussion:
Were Hansel and Gretel just wicked children who victimized a
poor old woman? Let your students decide.
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Counting: I
purchased gingerbread houses and programmed each with a number 1
- 20 and laminated them. Students count manipulatives onto
each house to match the number. In this picture we were
using mini snowflake erasers. We also use colorful round
erasers as well. You can also use individually wrapped
peppermint discs.
click
on image to enlarge
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Resources:
The Mailbox -
Kindergarten Dec/Jan 2000 - 2001
Visions of
Sugarplums unit with gingerbread house and health food store
patterns. Students sort pictures of food into healthy or
sweet treats.
Gingerbread Houses for Kids by Jennifer A.
Ericsson
Make Your Own Fable
and Fairy Tale Book - TCM
Literature
Activities for Young Children, Book 3 - TCM
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Links:
Hansel and Gretel
http://www.angelfire.com/va/hanselgretel/2000ENindex.html
Hansel and Gretal
http://www.tanglewoodmarionettes.com/hanselandgretel.html
Hansel and Gretal - My
Story
http://www.angelfire.com/sc/booksrus/hansel.html
Hansel and Gretal by The
Grimms Brothers
http://www.storybookcastle.com/stories/stories/?source_file=hansel_and_gretel
Gingerbread Treat
Bag
http://www.makingfriends.com/winter/printable_gingerbread_paper_bag.htm
Paperbag Gingerbread
House
http://www.makingfriends.com/winter/christmas_gingerbread_house.htm
Counting by 3s maze
with the witch (printable)
http://www.printactivities.com/Mazes/Math-Mazes/Witch-CountingBy3s.shtml
Gingerbread House
http://www.kinderart.com/kitchen/gingerbreadhouse.shtml
Gingerbread House
Recipe
http://groups.google.com/groups?oi=djq&selm=an_203864355
Gingerbread Showcase
http://www.gingerbreadlane.com/showcase.html
Gingerbread House
Card (printable)
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/christmas/gingerbreadhousecard/
Hansel and Gretel
http://www.sprookjes.kleurplaten.nl/pages/toon.asp?a=hoofdcategorie&id=895
A Gingerbread House
(printable)
http://www.bry-backmanor.org/actpag118.html
Gingerbread House
Heaven
http://www.gingerbread-house-heaven.com/
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