Saturday, December 8, 2012

Learning Maps with the Gingerbread Man

We started out our Gingerbread Unit learning about houses and neighborhoods, of course that's where the story all started in a house right?  We made our houses, then together made a neighborhood.


 
We live in a house in a neighborhood.  The neighborhood is part of a city.
We made a city.  We added environmental print to our buildings to make
our city come to life. 
 Love the cow!
 
Check out the Book Mobile!


Our City!
 
 We read many different versions of the Gingerbread Man and compared each story.

 
We made a map of the Gingerbread's adventures using arrows and the words: right, left, up and down.  The children made their own maps and explained their maps with each other.  


 
After learning about cardinal directions, we played North, East, South, and West.  It's kinda like four corners.  We labeled our room and replaced the words on our maps from the day before up, down, left and right with north, east, south and west.  The children drew a compass rose on their Gingerbread maps. 

 
 
We read the story, The Gingerbread ManLoose in the School.
 
 
 
We decorated a 10 inch cookie to eat. 
 

 
 
 But when we returned from washing our hands so we could eat the cookie, the cookie had disappeared!!!!!
 The children were devasted and said that it was all my fault, I left the room and didn't close the door.  They ran around the room, screaming, "Jinge, Jinge, where are you?"  They couldn't believe that the "legend" had come true. 

They decided to make "Missing Posters" of Jinge. 

 
The next morning, Jinge had left them a note with a map and directions.  The children had to read the map and go find Jinge.

 


We found Jinge!  Come to find out, Jinge had left the classroom to go find the nurse to get all bandaged up (when we first took him out of the box he was broken).  We sure can't eat our new friend now.  Everyday, the children tell me, "Don't forget to close the door!"