GINGERBREAD men art project

What is more fun than eating a cute little gingerbread man?  Designing one of course!

what you need:Large Gingerbread Men, brown construction paper, a brown paper bag, glue, wiggly eyes, pom poms, glitter, ribbon, anything small and easy to glue

Before I start any project, I make sure that everything is easy to pull out.  For this one, I filled the cups, prepared the tracer, and cut 2 gingerbread men the night before we were going to create our Gingerbread Men.  Little M was the artist, and she had a blast.  Because creativity is so important to me, there was no model of what the end result was “supposed” to be.  Only supplies, space, and time to create.

When preparing this activity I traced the gingerbread man once onto brown construction paper, once onto a brown paper bag, and once onto poster board.  After Little M was finished with the two precut gingerbread, I gave her the option to use the poster board tracer to trace her own.  Tracing is a great way for children to practice fine motor control.

Little M is still working on her cutting skills, so she was frustrated pretty quickly.  I took over the  cutting after she traced. (Win-Win. . .I can use some cutting practice too. Ha ha.)

Oh, they are so cute!

Questions(to ask your kids):  “Can you tell me anything specific about your gingerbread man?”  “I notice that you’ve put glitter on this hand and ribbon on this hand.  Why?”  “How many green balls did you use?  How many red?  How many all together?”

Tips(to maximize learning):  1.  Using different materials (like construction paper and brown paper bag) gives your little one’s fingers a sensory boost.  They will look different, they will cut differently, and show writing differently.  2.  I used a cookie sheet to contain the glitter. . .um I hate glitter so this will probably be the only time I use it!  3.  Make sure you are prepared for enough gingerbread men.  We ended up with 9.

This is one part of the Gingerbread Lesson plan,  check out Gingerbread Cookies, Gingerbread Chart, The Gingerbread Man Book Review and Gingerbread Man Hunt as well.