Inside: Use this fun and free glyph gingerbread activity to have fun during December or at holiday winter parties.
I did it. I said yes to organizing and hosting my daughter’s elementary school’s winter parties again. At her school, every class gets the same party for grades K-2 and for 3-5.
And because our public school has a very diverse student population (yay!), we are extra careful to host Winter Holiday Parties, not Christmas Parties.
So if you’re in the same boat as me, you’re looking for fun winter activities that are perfect for classroom parties that have nothing to do with religion or any one specific holiday.
The last time I did this, we focused on snowmen and used this Snowman Glyph Activity and fun snowmen games like these 16 of the Best Winter Holiday Party Activities.
This year, we’re making the parties a little more delicious and bringing in some gingerbread cookies!
Whether you’re hosting a scout party or a classroom party or just want to do this for your students or your kids, you will love this new gingerbread activity.
It’s not quite as good as eating gingerbread cookies, but it’s close!
Fun and Kind Winter Activities Perfect for Classrooms
Countdown to Winter Break and spread kindness simultaneously with this Countdown to Winter Break Paper Chain. Each day you’ll rip off an activity and do that act of kindness. And you’ll be one day closer to break!
We challenge kids to be kind all winter long with this Winter Kindness Challenge and we use these Snow Kind Note Cards.
And we love these Kind or Unkind Winter Sorts that are perfect as games or as centers:
Gingerbread Kind or Unkind Sort
We also love this Snowman Activity and Glyph chart!
Related: 16 of the BEST Gingerbread Printables and Activities
And we use this Gingerbread Glyph which is perfect for winter parties.
How to Use this Glyph Gingerbread Activity:
1. Download and print each child a copy of the white gingerbread template print on paper or cardstock. (Download it below)
2. Tell the kids a glyph chart is a follow directions and listening activity so they will decorate their gingerbread with a set of “rules” that answer questions about them.
3. Read off the first glyph, and ask students how many siblings they have.
If they have 0, they will draw two green eyes on their gingerbread cookie.
If they have 1 sibling, they will draw two brown eyes and if they have 2 or more siblings, they’ll draw blue eyes.
4. Wait until everyone has eyes on their cookie and move on to the next glyph “rule” until you go through them all.
5. Point out that each of the gingerbread cookies is decorated differently than the others because they are different than the other kids.
6. Have students write their names on the back and/or name their gingerbread cookie. They can use the Gingerbread Name Sheet or make up their own name.
7. Hang the gingerbread cookies up next to the “rules” and let parents/other kids guess whose cookie is whose based on the glyph “rules.”
Want more Gingerbread Activity Extension Ideas:
Use this Gingerbread Craft and Write to tie in Social Emotional Learning and focus on kindness during winter.
Read about Gingerbread Cookie Kindness with this Emergent Reader Set that focuses on beginning language and ways to show kindness.
You can also:
- Write a story about your gingerbread cookie (What would happen if he/she came alive at school?)
- Tell a story about your gingerbread cookie
- Make gingerbread cookies
- Bring in raw ginger so they can smell, touch or even taste it.
- Eat store-bought gingerbread cookies
- Take one bite and graph which body part kids ate off first
- Write a ‘recipe’ for a gingerbread cookie after tasting it.
- Act out the story of the Gingerbread Man
- Read different versions of The Gingerbread Man
The Gingerbread Man Loose in the School
How to Catch a Gingerbread Man
The Three Little Superpigs and the Gingerbread Man
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