Gingerbread Activities for Kindergarten {Books, FREEBIE, and MORE!}

Gingerbread is one of my favorite themes. There’s something about planning this unit that gets me in the holiday spirit. It’s definitely the highlight of December activities in the classroom {for me anyways!}. It’s one of those units that every kid can participate in because it’s not holiday related. This is why today I wanted to share some great gingerbread activities for Kindergarten.

With so many different versions of The Gingerbread Man, this is a great time of year to teach comparing and contrasting or making text-to-text connections. Below is a picture of some of my favorite read alouds for our gingerbread unit.

You can use my affiliate link to purchase any of the books above by clicking on the links below to Amazon:

With each new holiday I look forward to new mini erasers at Target. Oh the joys of adulthood and being a teacher. I don’t think I’m alone in this. Hands up if you too stalk the Dollar Spot for new erasers? I love coming up with new ways to use them!

If you don’t have a Target nearby, you can use my affiliate link to pick up these Christmas erasers on Amazon. That version has snowmen, santas, and Christmas trees. Here’s another set that has trees, candy canes, stars, and stockings.

Back in October I posted a freebie on this blog post using mini erasers to make uppercase letters. I received several e-mails and messages from teachers sharing how much they loved the activity so I decided to make a lowercase version and share it with you!

Just print and cut apart the cards. You can laminate the work mats, or just slide them in page protectors. Students select a letter card, place it on the work mat and then use erasers to make the letter. If you don’t have mini erasers, you can always use snap cubes.

Next up is a fun partner game which also can be played individually.

Here’s a fun little gingerbread activities for Kindergarten game to practice short a word families. Just print this page and slide it in a page protector. Students need a paper clip and a pencil to make a spinner and their own color snap cubes.

The directions are similar to BUMP! Students take turns spinning the spinner. They read the word family that they landed on and place a snap cube (or you can use two different kinds of mini erasers) on a picture that belongs in that word family. If the other player lands on the same word family, they can bump the player off and put their snap cube down. However, if a player lands on the same word family twice, they can stack their snap cubes (like a king in Checkers) and cannot be bumped off. The game is over when all of the spaces are full. The player with the most spaces covered wins the game.

You can also have students play this individually. They spin the spinner and cover a picture from that word family. They continue spinning and covering the pictures until all are covered.

I hope you’ll love these math games. All you’ve got to do is print and slide them in page protectors…oh, and add some mini erasers!

For this activity students need a pair of dice. They roll the dice and count to determine the number. They find the number on their work mat and count out that many erasers. If you’re short on erasers, you can have students just use one eraser to cover the number that they rolled.

The activity pictured above and below focus on numbers to 20. Directions are similar to the activity using dice. Students need a paper clip and pencil to make a spinner. They spin the spinner and identify the number. Then they count out that many erasers to add to the mat.

Here’s a few pictures from the activities included in the 6 Pack Centers: Gingerbread Edition. This packet includes 6 centers: 3 literacy and 3 math centers . Also included are 6 follow up practice pages which can be used to morning work, homework, sub tubs, extra practice, or an extra center activity.

Students count each set of gumdrops to determine which set is less. I added clothes pins for students to clip their answers. These adorable clothes pins came from the Dollar Spot at Target, or you can use my affiliate link to get a non-seasonal set of mini clothespins on Amazon. You could also use snap cubes, mini erasers, or regular clothes pins for students to mark their answers.

To record their answers student color the large gumdrop to match the color that showed less. They record the number on the gumdrop.

On the recording sheet students color the gumdrop and record the number sentence to show how they made ten. You could use this activity without the recording sheet as a fast finisher activity or in a morning tub.

Numbers 11 – 20 are also included in this set! These could also be used in morning tubs or as fast finisher activities.

To show their work students record the number and color the ten frame to match.

I included a no-prep version of this activity in A Dab of Learning: December edition last year. I got so many requests to make a center version…so here it is!

Students identify the target sound in the upper left corner. They say and stretch the word to determine if the target sound is the beginning, middle, or ending sound. They place a snap cube {or mini eraser} on the gumdrop that matches.

Here’s an activity to practice ending sounds. There are two color coded letter mats and matching ending sound picture cards.

Students match the picture on the card to their paper and record the letter to show the ending sound.

Students practice simple predictable sentences and color words with this activity. After they’ve sorted the cards by color they will put them in order to create a sentence. They record their sentence and color the gumdrop to match.

You can check out this 6 Pack Centers packet by clicking on the picture below.