In addition to our GBM hunt around the globe, we have spent MONTHS (since Halloween) preparing for a musical, The Tale of the Gingerbread Man that we found from Heidi Songs.  On Thursday, December 15th, 125 of our Kindergarten kiddos performed this musical for their parents (totaling over 400 guests!!).  The children helped to create the set (painting trees, etc.) and we helped to collect and make simple costumes–most were supplied by the families.

We also had a silent auction in conjunction with this event.  The children wanted to do something to help our local Habitat for Humanity after our field trip there in early November.  We decided to created gingerbread homes to auction off to raise money!  To date, our total is around $600!  Not bad for a 20 minute silent auction! 🙂  Here are some pictures of the creation of the g-bread homes…we had LOTS of parent help and knocked these out in about 2 hours! 🙂

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

During the day or two before the musical, we did lots of practicing on the risers and received some quick letters from the GBM which I forgot to take pictures of!!  We got letters from Brazil, Africa, Canada, and Russia.

When we visited Brazil, we learned about the legend of the dancing turtle and we made pattern block turtles.

In Africa,we learned about the coffee ceremony that takes place when children are adopted from Africa.  We also looked at coffee beans.

In Canada, we read The Three Snow Bears by Jan Brett and learned a little bit about the climate in Canada.

In Russia, we learned about The Mitten and used the printables from Jan Brett’s website to make drama props to help us retell the story.

To tie in some math, we measured the perimeter of a GBM using different math materials I already had in my classroom.  I traced a random GBM and then put the math materials in the copy machine to create the recording page.  The children rotated from table to table and measured the perimeter of the GBM.

This is the package we received when the GBM visited Israel.  We learned about the celebration of Hanukkah and read Mrs. Greenburg’s Messy Hanukkah.  We also talked about the Menorah and how all of the candles are important to the celebration of Hanukkah.  The GBM also brought us paper menorah’s to cut out and color.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Next, we went to Conner Prairie (our Living History Museum) and saw the gingerbread houses.  We also “chased” the GBM through Conner House, met the little old woman, and ventured to the barn to ask the animals if they had seen the GBM run through their barn.  Finally, we met up with the GBM in the main building and we got to have our picture taken with him!

Kristen 🙂