gingerbread fever

it's official. we have gingerbread fever in our class. the two storybooks we have in our classroom library have always been popular, but i added the gingerbread girl to the set and- wow. every single child is engaged with this story and the characters. seeing the girls' eyes light up when i introduced the gingerbread girl at story time yesterday was priceless. we have also made gingerbread-scented playdough:

and we have decorated construction-paper gingerbread people:

a word about this activity. it's not the sort of thing i usually ask them to do, but so many of our kids love to glue, especially the younger ones who don't have much english yet. it's a concrete project, and i knew i would draw a big crowd. tomorrow the plan is to sit down with the kids individually and have them tell me a story about the gingerbread person they made- much more challenging, and open-ended.