Thematic Thursday: Gingerbread Fun!

I am linking up with Comprehension Connection for Thematic Thursday.  This week is all about Gingerbread!  Who doesn't love Gingerbread?  It's yummy, smells fabulous, and to be honest all things gingerbread are just darn cute!

We have had a family tradition of building and decorating Gingerbread houses on Christmas Eve for going on 13 years now. 

My 3 best tips are: 

• Shop for candy at the dollar store.
• Build the house in the morning, let it dry, and then decorate late in the afternoon.  
• White Cotton Candy is the bomb for covering roof tops!

A few years back we added the tradition of Gingerbread Demolition Day, but I will save that for another time!

We are also heavily involved in a fantastic event called Gingerbread for Humanity put on by our church family.  This is actually a fundraiser for Habitat for Humanity and all the proceeds go directly to building a house right here in town.  Way back when the event first started we would bake and build almost 300 houses for this special day.  As we have grown we have found a supplier of pre-baked and assembled houses to help us with the work load.  Just because we love this event so much, we even built a Gingerbread float for our hometown Christmas parade...and we won first place!

To find out more about Gingerbread for Humanity click to find them on Facebook.

Aside from the great smell and the general cuteness, Gingerbread seems to be a theme that can be adapted for the classroom in so many fun ways.  Two of my favorites happen to be math activities that can then be used as classroom displays!

The first activity has students decorating a blank Gingerbread house with 4 different types of "candy" and then calculating what fraction of the house is decorated in each type of candy.  This lesson can be differentiated for students at a variety of math levels by changing the total number of candy pieces they are allowed to use, and by requiring them to reduce all their fractions.

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Another of my favorites is a Gingerbread Coloring Glyph.  This one is designed for those teachers who don't quite have the time to do the craftivity type glyphs (though I do think those are fabulous). This is a coloring glyph that includes a data graph and a data summary activity to go along with the graph. Mat these colored glyphs on colored paper, hang them up and then have students use the display to complete data summary activities pages in a learning station! 

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To see more fantastic ideas for Gingerbread Fun be sure to check out this Gingerbread Fun Pinterest Board set up by Carla from the Comprehension Connection!

Follow Comprehension's board Gingerbread Fun on Pinterest.