Gingerbread Man Read Alouds: Mentor Texts and Activities

Gingerbread man read alouds are some of the easiest books to teach with in December and January, because most students already know the story before you open the cover. That shared starting point is what makes them so useful: once students know the original, they can retell it, compare versions, and write their own. Below are the two books I built units around, a lesson for comparing versions of the story, and more gingerbread books to keep in your stack.

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The Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett

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In The Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett, Matti opens the oven door too soon, and a gingerbread baby jumps out and runs off through the village with a growing crowd behind him. Brett’s side panels show Matti back at home working on a plan to catch him, so students follow two parts of the story at the same time.

What I teach with it: author’s purpose, problem and solution, cause and effect, sequencing, and character analysis of the Gingerbread Baby and Matti. For grammar, its action words make it a strong mentor text for vivid verbs.

Gingerbread Week Activities for Grades 2-4: a full week of reading, writing, grammar, math, science, and social studies built around The Gingerbread Baby, including a dissolving gingerbread cookie experiment and a history of the gingerbread man.

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Gingerbread Week covers reading, writing, grammar, math, science, social studies, and crafts, so you can teach the whole unit in one week or pull the pieces that fit your schedule. Here’s one way to lay out five days with The Gingerbread Baby at the center.

Day 1

Read the book and meet the words

Read The Gingerbread Baby aloud, then start the mentor sentence lesson with one sentence from the book. Students preview the vocabulary on the What Do You Think? chart, using clues from the book to figure out each word.

Day 2

Vivid verbs

The mentor sentence lesson focuses on vivid verbs. Students complete the interactive vivid verbs activity, and the foldable goes in their notebooks to pull out when they write.

Day 3

Characters and story structure

Students use the flapbook to work through author’s purpose, problem and solution, and cause and effect, then analyze the characters of the Gingerbread Baby and Matti.

Day 4

Gingerbread math

Students design a gingerbread house on grid paper to practice area and perimeter. Then they answer questions about a gingerbread man recipe, with an easier and a harder set of questions to choose from.

Day 5

Experiment and crafts

Finish with the dissolving gingerbread experiment. Students predict which liquid will dissolve a gingerbread cookie fastest, then record what they observe. If you have time, add the gingerbread house or ornament craft.

The unit

Gingerbread Week, grades 2-4

Every activity in this plan comes from Gingerbread Week, along with a list of gingerbread books to use with it.

See Gingerbread Week

More pieces to work in

More ways to use it

• Mixed levels: the history passage comes in three versions for grades 2, 3, and 4, the recipe has an easier and a harder set of questions, and the mentor sentence quizzes come in lower and upper grade versions.
• Writing: students design a gingerbread person and write a “missing” description detailed enough that a classmate could find it, or write about designing and building a gingerbread house.
• Compare versions: the unit includes a page for comparing two gingerbread books, so pair The Gingerbread Baby with one of the retellings in the compare versions lesson below.
• Spread it out: if a full theme week won’t fit, use one or two gingerbread activities a day across December or January.
• Send one home: the gingerbread man recipe makes an easy take-home page for families to bake together over the break.

How to Catch a Gingerbread Man by Adam Wallace, illustrated by Andy Elkerton

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In How to Catch a Gingerbread Man by Adam Wallace, a gingerbread man runs loose through a school, and the students build traps to catch him. The trap-building plot leads right into how-to writing, and the rhyming text makes it a fun one to retell.

What I teach with it: retelling and summarizing, adjectives, and procedural writing with transition words. Students also write a new ending or add a scene to the story.

How to Catch a Gingerbread Man Activities for Grades 1-2: a mentor sentence lesson on adjectives in first and second grade versions, retelling and summarizing, and procedural writing with transition words.

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For the rest of the series, my post on the How to Catch books has activity ideas for the holiday titles.

The gingerbread man story has been retold in so many settings that it’s one of the best ways to teach students to compare versions of the same story. Start with a traditional version so everyone knows the original, then bring in a retelling with a new character, setting, or ending.

How to teach it

1. 1Read the traditional version first. Chart the characters, the setting, the repeated chant, and the ending.
2. 2Read a retelling. Ask students to listen for what the author kept and what the author changed.
3. 3Compare the two. Add the second book to the chart, then talk about why an author might change the setting or the ending.
4. 4Write about it. Students explain which version they like best and give reasons from both books.

Versions to compare

• The Gingerbread Man by Jim Aylesworth, illustrated by Barbara McClintock: A traditional retelling to use as your starting point.
• The Gingerbread Girl by Lisa Campbell Ernst: The gingerbread girl knows how her brother’s story ended, and she outsmarts the fox.
• The Gingerbread Cowboy by Janet Squires: The chase moves to a ranch in the Southwest, with a coyote waiting at the end.
• The Gingerbread Boy by Richard Egielski: The chase runs through the streets of New York City.

• Gingerbread Friends by Jan Brett: The Gingerbread Baby goes looking for friends in this follow-up to The Gingerbread Baby.
• The Gingerbread Man Loose in the School by Laura Murray: A class bakes a gingerbread man, and he sets off through the school to find them. A favorite for the first weeks of school.
• The Gingerbread Pirates by Kristin Kladstrup: A pirate cookie named Captain Cookie goes looking for his crew on Christmas Eve.
• The Ninjabread Man by C. J. Leigh: A ninja twist on the story that pairs well with a traditional version.