Scented Gingerbread Sandpaper People

 We put out half sheets of course sandpaper and large gingerbread cookie cutters.  The children traced around the cookie cutters.

Cut out the shape.  (love the concentration in this photo)

Punched a hole for to thread a string through.

Then they "colored"  it with cinnamon sticks....

and even a licorice root that a parent brought in for us.

Those that wanted to, decorated the "cookie" with crayons, but most were content to simply enjoy the smell and the experience of coloring with the spices.  Most were not interested in what it looked like, and this wasn't the focus of the activity.

I think a lot of cars around our neighborhood smelled pretty good this week.

Scent of a Gingerbread Man

When we start reading gingerbread stories I like to immerse the class in the smells of the experience.  Aside from making gingerbread play dough and gingerbread cookies, we explore the various spices that go into these recipes.  It is very interesting for the children to see them whole before they have been ground up and put in a jar.

 
We use mortars and pestles to crush them or graters to grate them up.  We have a wonderful spice store fairly close to us where we can buy big bags of spices.

Star Anise, nutmeg, cloves, allspice, cinnamon and fresh ginger were placed out on a surface for the children to grind, grate, touch, feel and smell.

Many of these spices are very interesting to look at.  Nutmeg has purple veins running through it, and ginger root is so gnarled, and star anise is actually star shaped with seeds inside.

The action of grinding is very enjoyable for children and several children spent time in this center everyday for the week.

When we were done, we had a nice large bowl of ground  up spices.  Rather than waste them, we made sachets with the children.

The children were given a small square of fabric.

They added a big spoonful of our spices.

And we helped them tie it into a pouch.

This way, they could share their sensory experience at home with their families and be reminded of the exploration when they smell their sachets.

Our Traditional Gingerbread Hunt

I am a big proponent of emergent curriculum and The Project Approach, but this time of year for a couple of weeks, we do engage in a beloved tradition.  Our class doesn't focus too much on the various holidays of the month...rather we dive in to  various gingerbread stories.  Each year we seem to find a new one or two to enjoy.  This year a parent found The Gingerbread Bear by Robert Dennis and Gingerbear by Mini Grey, two very different stories.

I will be sharing the various fun activities we engaged in with our gingerbread in the next post, but the culminating event was our beloved hunt for the runaway cookie.  My class this year brought it up to us before we even mentioned it.

"Remember when the cookie ran away.  You comed into my class to find it.  We didn't see it!"

As we travel through each class on our hunt, the previous three year old class remembered and was hoping it would happen again.  Well, it did.

This class voted on making a large Gingerbread Girl.

We talked through which body parts she needed as I cut her from the dough.  Then of course, we had to decorate her with just a little :-) candy.  Licorice whip hair just like the book!

A few pounds heavier, we popped her in the oven.  Later when I went to check on her, she was gone!

But she left a clue.
Everywhere she went she left a rhyming clue with her signature refrain as well.

We tried to find her in the threes classroom, the twos classroom, the office, even outside.

Until at last we found her in our classroom hidden under a blanket.

We quickly did a little math to figure out how many pieces to break her into and she went the way of "most" gingerbread creatures...

snip, snap, snip....she was all gone.

It was especially poignant for me that this year, at this time, we had a fun and exciting activity to do that focused on the magical joy of childhood.  This week we made sure to focus on keeping our routines, providing a safe and nurturing place to play and making the children feel happy and loved.  We just had a little help from a special gingerbread girl.