The smell of gingerbread is such a pleasant part of the holiday season. The cheerful decorating of houses, people and animals made out of the sweet dough is another fun tradition for many families. The sweet and spicy smell and the fun of decorating inspired me to create these fun activities to pair with an adorable book by Jan Brett.

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Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett tells the story of Matti, a little boy who opens the oven too early while making gingerbread men. A gingerbread baby pops out of the oven and leads Matti’s parents and a slew of other characters on a chase. Jan Brett’s twist on the traditional story of the gingerbread man provides kids with a sweeter ending. Her beautiful illustrations of the Swiss mountains are detailed and colorful and will keep kids entertained as they follow the little cookie’s escape. There are so many wonderful ways to use gingerbread to bring this story to life!

Gingerbread Dramatic Play

There are many options for dramatic play with this story. Kids can pretend they are baking gingerbread cookies in a play kitchen. If you are extra motivated, you can build a gingerbread house out of cardboard boxes, or decorate a plastic playhouse as a gingerbread house.

Gingerbread Play Dough

The blog Ben and Me posted a recipe for deliciously scented gingerbread play dough. The recipe is very simple to follow and uses ingredients that you will probably have in your home. The dough comes out in a great texture and is so fun to use. You can easily make a batch of this dough and use it to pretend you are making gingerbread men. You could even let kids use buttons or beads to decorate them. We used these great cookie cutter stamps from Michaels Craft Stores.

Learn about Christmas cookie traditions around the world!

Gingerbread Man Tag

Give a holiday twist to the game of “Duck Duck Goose”. Sit a group in a circle and assign one child to be the gingerbread baby. That child has to walk around the circle saying “Run, run as fast as you can, you can’t catch me, I’m the gingerbread man!” while touching everyone’s heads. Whoever he touches when he says “Man” has to get up and chase the gingerbread baby around the circle. If the chosen child catches the gingerbread baby, then she gets to sit back down. If the gingerbread baby gets back to her seat, then the chosen child becomes the new gingerbread baby. For only one or two kids, you can play a game of tag where one child is the gingerbread baby and has to run away, while the other has to chase and catch him.

Bake and Decorate

Take this opportunity to bake some gingerbread men or a gingerbread house! Give each child a job to do and take advantage of the opportunity to review measurements, kitchen safety and how to follow a recipe. When the cookies are cooled, decorate your gingerbread men and your house as a family. Pinterest is full of great gingerbread house inspiration!

Check out these fun gingerbread stories and delicious cookie recipes! 

Button Matching Gingerbread Men

Button Match

Cut little gingerbread men shapes out of brown paper and gather a collection of buttons or pom poms. Assign each cookie a color or a number. Have kids place the right number of buttons or the right color pom poms onto each cookie. This not only reinforces the counting or color matching skill, but also helps with fine motor practice.

Felt Gingerbread Men

Cut gingerbread men shapes out of brown felt. Let kids decorate their gingerbread men with buttons, beads, and shapes that they cut out of felt. (If you have younger kids, pre-cut some shapes for them). Older kids can also write stories about their gingerbread characters.

There are so many fun ways to incorporate this story into your Christmas celebrations while giving kids opportunities to learn. Does your family have any traditions with gingerbread?