Life-sized gingerbread men

 

We have been enjoying the classic tale “ The Gingerbread Man” and following on from the children baking their own, last week we decided to make some life size gingerbread men out of paper.

 First, we had to lay down and trace around our bodies. Then we took turns to cut out the shape and boy they were large. Some of our tamariki decided that they could do the cutting all by themselves which was quite a work out for those finger muscles as they navigated the swirling lines of the body! Such hard work.

As the children are learning to cut, we had a few severed arms. Resilience and problem solving skills were set into action as they figured out how they would reattach the limbs! We see these moments as great teachable moments that we can learn from. Children also practised being patient and waiting for their turn to lay down.

Zoe set off to lay her Gingerbread man on a table to try an make it easier for her to decorate.

Next, they decided to decorate their life sized gingerbread men by adding details.

                                        

LJ drew clothes onto his- stripy t-shirt and pants and made straight angry eyebrows.

Once our Gingerbread men were done, some of us noticed that some were smaller than others.

This led into a great mathematical discussion about size order and comparing. We had children laying down ever so carefully in other gingerbread men to check that they were intact taller ( or smaller) than a friends cut out. We had them laying next to each other on the floor to see if we could see the tallest one

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It was really cool showing our Mum’s and Dad’s at pick up time. Some kept a sneaky life sized gingerbread man surprise in their bags! I hope they didn’t get eaten! GULP GULP!