Montessori-Inspired Gingerbread Activities Using Free Printables

By Deb Chitwood from Living Montessori Now 

I love gingerbread activities at Christmastime, so this post was extra fun to prepare. I'm still adding to my list of free gingerbread printables ... there are so many great ones! 
 
 

I shared my list of free gingerbread printables in my post today at Living Montessori Now. Here, I've created some gingerbread activities using free printables for preschoolers through first graders. 

You'll find many activities for preschoolers through first graders throughout the year along with presentation ideas in my previous posts at PreK + K Sharing. You'll also find ideas for using free printables to create activity trays here: How to Use Printables to Create Montessori-Inspired Activities. 

At Living Montessori Now, I have a post with resource links of Free Printables for Montessori Homeschools and Preschools. 

 Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links at no cost to you. 

Gingerbread Visual Discrimination and Fine-Motor Activity

   
This is a simple but fun activity using the free Gingerbread Visual Discrimination Printable from Pre-K Pages. You can print, laminate, and cut out the task cards as I did, or you can create a booklet for children to use. I used a large plastic tray and added quick sticks from Montessori Services along with small glass gems to include a fun fine-motor activity. The glass gems are placed on the two matching gingerbread people on each card.

Gingerbread Man Color Sort 

   
For this activity, I used Gingerbread Man Color Sort from Making Learning Fun. You could just cut out the cards with the gingerbread men instead of individually cutting out each gingerbread man, which would be a bit quicker. I wanted my gingerbread men to look more like cookies, so I cut out the individual gingerbread men. The plates are just construction paper using the printables from Making Learning fun. I used a Montessori Services rug for my layout.

   

Gingerbread Odd and Even Activity 

   
This tray uses the Gingerbread Even or Odd from Mrs. Kelly’s Klass. I love that this can extend the Montessori cards and counters introduction of odd and even. If you use the Montessori Primary Guide cards and counters lesson linked to in the post, you can see how to introduce odd and even in Montessori education. 

Of course, it helps if children are comfortable with cards and counters and have been introduced to the decimal system before doing this activity. This activity can show that odd and even is only dependent on the units place value. (Note: the gingerbread man from this activity would be great for a place value activity similar to my Christmas tree place value activity here last year.) 

You could have glass gems available as a way for children to check any odd or even numbers they're unsure of. You could also have one control dot for odd numbers and two control dots for even numbers on the back of each card as a control of error.

Gingerbread Man Symmetry Design Tray 

 

This activity uses the free Gingerbread Man Symmetry by Floriane Siegel at Teachers Pay Teachers. I'm not a fan of coloring activities unless they further creativity or have an educational purpose. (Montessori activities such as coloring specific continents or parts of something are some of my favorite uses of coloring.) I like this activity because it allows children to create a design and learn about symmetry with the coloring activity.  

Gingerbread Holiday Beginning Sounds Activity 

   

Gingerbread Holiday Beginning Sounds from Kinders on the Block is a cute printable for a phonics activity reinforcing beginning sounds. I used miniature clothespins to help develop fine-motor skills. These 1 3/4" clothespins are from the Building and Blocks Toolbox from Montessori By Mom.  If you want to make the activity even more challenging, you can use 1" clothespins.

You can learn more about introducing beginning sounds in my DIY Sandpaper Letters post.  

Where Is the Gingerbread Man? Activity

   
I was excited to find the Gingerbread Common Core Positional Word Daily Writing Activity from The Barefoot Teacher. It can be used for a writing activity using the printable page. 

I thought it would also be fun as a variation of Elf on the Shelf. The gingerbread man could be printed out in whatever size you'd like and put in a new place in the classroom or home each day. Children could identify the location using positional words either verbally or in writing. 

Here's the link to my favorite laminator ... inexpensive and great for almost any activity that needs to be laminated! 

More Free Christmas Printables and Montessori-Inspired Christmas Activities

Go to my post at Living Montessori Now for links to gingerbread freebies from around the blogosphere: Free Gingerbread Printables and Montessori-Inspired Gingerbread Activities.

You'll find lots of Montessori-inspired December holiday activities and ideas in these posts at Living Montessori Now: Activity of the Week – Montessori-Inspired Decorating the Christmas Tree Activity, Activity of the Week – Gift Wrapping Work, How to Use Godly Play at Home During Advent, December Family Activities, Turning Christmas Crafts into Montessori-Oriented Activities, Montessori-Inspired Christmas Activities, 50+ December Family Activities, Montessori-Inspired Christmas Activities (Part 2), Holiday Manners, How to Prepare a Special Kids’ Table for Holiday Gatherings, Homeschool Christmas, Montessori-Inspired Christmas Playdough Activities, 40+ Christmas Countdown Activities, Montessori-Inspired Christmas Crafts, Montessori-Inspired Nativity Activities, Montessori-Inspired Hanukkah Activities, Christmas Around the World: Scotland, Montessori-Inspired Christmas Activities and Free Christmas Printables, 40+ Christmas Sensory Tubs, Montessori-Inspired Christmas Scavenger Hunt, Montessori-Inspired Kids’ Gift Wrapping Activities, Hundreds of December Holiday Activities for Kids, Christmas Countdown Activities {with Lots of Free Printables}, December Themed Activities for Kids, Using Variations of Elf on the Shelf to Encourage Kindness, Montessori-Inspired Christmas Cards and Crafts, Montessori-Inspired Set-Ups for Christmas Playdough Activities, Christmas Gingerbread Man Fine-Motor Activity or Craft, Montessori-Inspired Christmas Craft – Painted Wooden Ornaments, Free Christmas Tree Printables and Montessori-Inspired Christmas Tree Activities, Montessori-Inspired Little Passports Activities – Israel (includes Hanukkah activities and free printables), Using Kindness Elves to Encourage Kindness {Ideas and Free Printables}, Free Nutcracker Printables and Montessori-Inspired Nutcracker Activities, Montessori-Inspired Christmas Activities with Spielgaben {Free Printables}, 20+ Christmas Phonics Activities, Free Christmas Songs and Rhymes for Circle Time, Baby or Toddler Handprint or Footprint Keepsake Ornament, Free Hanukkah Songs and Rhymes for Circle Time, Kids’ Christmas Activities Pinterest Board, Kids’ Non-Christian Religious Holiday Activities Pinterest Board.

If you'd like to focus on manners with children, please check out my eBook Montessori at Home or School: How to Teach Grace and Courtesy! It's written for anyone who'd like to feel comfortable teaching manners to children ages 2-12.

Happy holidays!

 
Deb Chitwood is a certified Montessori teacher with a master’s degree in Early Childhood Studies from Sheffield Hallam University in Sheffield, England. Deb taught in Montessori schools in Iowa and Arizona before becoming owner/director/teacher of her own Montessori school in South Dakota. Later, she homeschooled her two children through high school. Deb is now a Montessori writer who lives in San Diego with her husband of 39 years (and lives in the city where her kids, kids-in-law, and baby granddaughter live). She blogs at Living Montessori Now.

More on Mixed Aged Classrooms: How Do You Manage?

I run a mixed aged classroom. In fact, yesterday, there was a full decade - 10 years- in age difference between our youngest learner and our oldest learner. I am often faced with questions from a variety of sources trying to understand exactly - How Do You Manage a Mixed Aged Classroom?

 (If you remember, I have posted a little bit about our philosophy and our mixed ages groupings before, you can read that post here.)

First, I have to admit. EVERY classroom comes with its own challenges. Every child, regardless of age, brings their own strengths and experiences to the classroom. Every child has needs and different requirements. Working with mixed ages can be challenging, but in the end, age is just a number.

I'm going to take a few minutes to answer some of the more common questions I am asked about integrating such a wide range of ages in our classroom.

What do you do with the infants?

The majority of questions I receive in regard to mixed ages has to do with caring for infants at the same time as older children. Yes, infants do have some additional needs that you don't have with older children. However, having infants together with older children provides a wonderful reciprocal learning opportunity.  Older children are constantly modeling and scaffolding for the younger ones. Younger infants and toddlers provide ample opportunities for modeling empathy and treating others with respect. 

Logistically, What does this look like in our classroom?

We run an emergent play-based classroom. This means that we are very child centered. The children take the lead, and we support them through resources, conversation, and reflection. Our materials are set out at child level with any material that would be a choking hazard or require additional close supervision to be placed on higher shelves. We have real- honest and open conversations about our concerns with materials.

"Ms. Amy, Can we play with the dollhouse stuff?" 

"I'm a little bit worried about all of the small pieces with the babies here today....

How could we make that work?"

By sharing my concerns with the older children and asking them to be the problem solvers, I am not imposing rules..... I am inviting them to be active participants and to solve problems to come up with agreeable solutions. Sometimes the ideas the children come up with are brilliant......

Sometimes, it means that I engage the younger children in a different activity. Sometimes it means that the small pieces are only played with at a table or on a higher level than the younger children. Sometimes it means that I play too, sitting with the infants to make sure that they don't put any pieces in their mouths. Sometimes it means waiting until the infant(s) take a nap. Whatever the solution, the children own it.

I also try to promote as much independence as early as possible. This means that mobile infants are on the floor and mobile. I don't tend to use things like exersaucers, swings, or bouncers inside. We do have a few chairs for sitting in, and I use the high chair seats on the floor. (The ones that you would normal strap onto a regular chair).  By having the chairs at the child's level, they can crawl up to them. 

When older children are building with blocks and don't want the younger children to knock their creations down, I ask them to use their words. "Tell them you don't want them to touch your tower." It usually doesn't work very well as very young infants are quite egocentric and if they want to do something, they continually try to do it. So, I usually position myself on the floor near the structure and keep little ones from knocking the tower down, reminding them, "I think I heard M.. say that she doesn't want you to touch her tower. We need to find something else to do. I can build a tower for you to knock down or you can find something else to play with" I proceed to engage the younger children in something similar and keep them from the older children's creations.  Most of the time this works out well, and sooner rather than later they start to understand to respect the space and explorations of others. 

Then, sometimes, it all works out and we all explore together...

playing, learning, and growing with the help of each other. 

 More About Amy

Amy Ahola is the owner/operator of Child Central Station, group home daycare and educational toy store in Marquette, Michigan.  She has been running her own business since 2005. Prior to that time, Amy worked in a childcare center and public school. In addition to her childcare business, Amy also provides educational training sessions. Amy earned a Bachelors of Science in Psychology from Northern Michigan University and a M.S. in Training, Development, and Performance Improvement.  For more information about any of her programs, please visit Child Central Station or Find her on Facebook!