Gingerbread Centers and Activities for Gingerbread Week (Freebies too)

Are you planning for Gingerbread Week in your classroom? Time just flies by, and the holidays are here again! Every year, the week before Christmas, we do Gingerbread Week in my classroom! It’s the perfect festive theme, especially if you’re unable to celebrate Christmas in your classroom. Explore gingerbread with tons of ideas and games for gingerbread activities! Preschool, pre-k, & kindergarten students will LOVE this theme!

In this post, I am sharing some of the gingerbread activities we do in my class. You can grab all the gingerbread printable activities in my Gingerbread Centers Math, Literacy, and More pack, my Gingerbread Book Comparison Pack, and the Little Learners Gingerbread 5 Senses Science Unit.

Gingerbread Visiting the Classroom

Gingerbread in the Classroom! Many classrooms incorporate the Elf on the Shelf during the Christmas season, and it is a ton of fun. But some of my families do not celebrate Christmas, so I have a Gingerbread Man come to visit us! I found this gingerbread Beanie Baby a few years ago. The baby gingerbread was actually a keychain. All I did was cut the keychain string off.

Every day the students come in and have to find him. Their favorite thing was when he gave them a box of craft supplies so they could transform the dollhouse into his own gingerbread house. It was tons of tearing, cutting, and taping (aka a fine motor activity). They worked on his house EVERY day with such enthusiasm!

One day he hid 18 candy canes around the room (counting and informal subtraction activity). It is an easy way to get the students excited and engaged in a new activity, which can be tricky during the holidays. In my Gingerbread Centers pack, you will find pre-written notes from the gingerbread man and EDITABLE notes you can tailor to fit your classroom.

Gingerbread Math Activities

Gingerbread STEM and Positional Words! This Gingerbread House STEM Challenge gets students creating, problem-solving, and engineering. The challenge was to build a gingerbread house that would hold five gumdrops. Students drew a sketch of their house after it was complete.

Gumdrop Measure! Measuring using gumdrops is so much more engaging than using cubes. I put out gingerbread items on a cookie tray for students to measure. Students picked out an item to measure and then recorded the size on a small clipboard for a fun non-standard measurement activity.

Weighing Gingerbread! Weighing items and comparing their weight using a scale is another way for students to explore measurement. Grab any colorful manipulatives like buttons, mini erasers, gumdrops, or cubes for students to use. Students explored how many items it took to be equal, more than, and less than the gingerbread man. They also weighed buttons and compared their weight to the gumdrops.

Gumdrop Shapes! Gumdrops are also perfect for building 2D shapes! Students can construct 2D shapes with toothpicks and gumdrops using the Gingerbread shape cards as a guide. Use big words like vertices and sides to discuss the characteristics of the shapes as they make them.

Hot Cocoa Math! Little learners will love practicing counting or addition with this fun hot cocoa math game. Students will pick a number for marshmallows and chocolate and then count out that many manipulatives. I used pom poms, pieces of felt, mini erasers, or cotton balls for manipulatives.

Gingerbread House Roll & Count! Gingerbread house count is the perfect engaging math activity. Students roll one number cube and count out the corresponding number of items to decorate their houses. I also had some students roll two number cubes, add, and count out the total.

Gingerbread Path Game! My students just love path games, so I make a ton of them. You can grab this game for FREE from my TPT store HERE. There is also a black and white version in the download, if you want to save ink.

Gingerbread Literacy Activities

Gingerbread Book List! There are so many wonderful books that go with a gingerbread theme that my little learners loved! Check out the gingerbread book list here.

Gingerbread Syllables! Students will grab a candy with a picture on it and say the word. Then they will count the number of syllables and place them in the correct gingerbread man’s mouth. I placed my picture cards in a sensory bin for more fun. Students can use tweezers to get them out for more fine motor practice.

Gingerbread Letter & Sound Match-Up! Identifying letters and beginning sounds is hard for little learners. I do not do a letter of the week or any bought letter program. We just play a ton of letter and sound games in different ways. This approach immerses students in a rich literacy environment. Older students matched letters and sounds. My three-year-old friends only matched letters. I did this activity for a small group and then put it in the library center for students to do independently.

Gingerbread Color by Letter! Give students another chance at practicing letters with this fun color-by-letter activity. I placed letter manipulatives on a pan, and students picked a letter. Then found it on their paper and colored in that area with the correct color.

Gingerbread House Rhyme Puzzles! Gingerbread house rhyme puzzles are a fun way to practice and assess rhymes. Place the puzzle pieces in a sensory bin for added fun.

Gingerbread Writing Tray! Writing in a silky writing tray feels soft and smooth and smells like cinnamon. Just add a sprinkle of cinnamon to a salt tray, and you can awaken their sense of smell. Put the handwriting worksheets away and get your students practicing letters in a different way! Grab the cute gingerbread letter cards in the math & literacy gingerbread pack.

Gingerbread Letter Making! Build letters on these letter mats using gingerbread playdough (add cinnamon to my homemade playdough recipe) and gumdrops for fine motor work or handwriting practice. Build the letter and then trace it! Place the cards on a cookie sheet for an engaging setup.

Gingerbread Building Words! Build letters with letter beads and pretend they are candy for the gingerbread house! Use my gingerbread printable word cards, or simply write gingerbread-themed words on index cards.

Gingerbread Writing Center! Explore writing and literacy with a fun gingerbread-themed writing center. I give students lots of writing utensil choices and fun papers to encourage reluctant writers.

Gumdrop Sight Words! Build sight words, build names, or match uppercase and lowercase letters using this gingerbread house mat and gumdrop letters. This activity is super simple to differentiate, so all students are working and growing at their own levels.

Gingerbread Art & Sensory Activities

Gingerbread Craft! A gingerbread craft is a must for this theme. I just love how each student’s gingerbread man is unique! Hang them up and decorate a bulletin board with them! You can grab the gingerbread template in the math and literacy pack and then give students random art accessories.

Gingerbread Play Dough Tray! A gingerbread play dough tray experience is another must for this theme. Grab some cookie cutters, buttons, eyes, and cut up some pipe cleaners. I used a basic cook play dough recipe and just added some cinnamon. Students can strengthen all those hand, wrist, and arm muscles as they make the cookies.

Cookie Cutter Art! Gingerbread cookie cutter art is a fun process art project that is low prep and a ton of fun. Plus it is great for strengthening those fine motor muscles!

Gingerbread Sensory Bin! For my sensory table, I put in oatmeal. At first, I wanted to do flour, crazy, right?! I thought that would be a bit too messy, so oatmeal was the next best thing. Then I added some baking tools, small magnet letters, gingerbread mini erasers, and cinnamon to make it smell just like gingerbread. You can’t see it in the photo, but there is a cookie tray leaning on the inside of the table for students to stick the magnet letters to! I just love sneaking in literacy anywhere I can!

Bakery Sensory Bin! You can make a separate sensory bin for the second week by switching out the letters for shape buttons and placing a muffin tin in the sensory table. Tape shape buttons to the bottom for sorting by color/shape.

Gingerbread Science, Blocks, & STEM Activities

5 Senses with Gingerbread! Gingerbread is a fun theme to review the 5 senses because the senses of taste and smell are really highlighted in this theme! I created a Gingerbread 5 Senses Science Unit with tons of hands-on activities like gingerbread-themed smell jars, listening jars, and I spy and touch bags. I have also included vocabulary cards with real photographs and whole-group activities too. Grab it HERE.

Gingerbread Blocks & STEM Props! In blocks, students can build gingerbread houses for the gingerbread man, girl, and baby! Just add some striped straws, pom poms, buttons, and cardboard! You can grab the gingerbread STEM I Can Build cards HERE.

Gingerbread Dramatic Play Area

Gingerbread Bakery Dramatic Play! The pretend center changed into a BAKERY for our gingerbread theme. It’s so much fun, and I give you all the details in THIS BLOG POST.

Gingerbread is one of my favorite themes, and my students LOVE it! I can’t wait for you to implement it in your classroom. If you need all the gingerbread math & literacy centers AND the gingerbread book comparison resources, grab the BUNDLE to save money!

Grab the Gingerbread 5 Senses Science unit here!

Need gingerbread printables for circle time? Go grab Gingerbread Book Comparison, which includes retelling cards for four different gingerbread books, writing paper, comparison anchor chart pieces, favorite gingerbread book class graph, and MORE.

Check out the Gingerbread Book Comparison post to see how I implemented the resources.