The Gingerbread Man Retell Literacy Center Activity

Create your own Gingerbread Man retelling activity with this free download for kindergarten.

This is how I created a The Gingerbread Man retell activity to go in our retell center as a storytelling option for my kindergarten students.

Let me show you what’s in our set and give you the materials to make it happen in your classroom too.

It’s one of my favorite literacy centers and we usually introduce The Gingerbread Man just before Christmas.

It plays a big role in creating the idea for our Gingerbread Adventures, which carries us all the way to Christmas break. I have so many versions of this story and my kinders love comparing and contrasting the characters and seeing which stories have a growing list (or not).

At this center, they read they act, they use lots of great vocabulary and are developing fantastic reading habits all while continuing to build their love of reading.

My kinders get to choose the book(s) they want to retell while they are at this literacy center.

What’s in my Gingerbread Man retell set

Here are the props I gathered rather inexpensively (and you can too) to bring the book alive once we knew it by heart.

I found a printable online and simply colored it with marker and added Popsicle sticks.

I had this gingerbread man plush in my stash of Christmas decorations, but he has been permanently relocated to this retell set instead.

How to make your own retell activity

If you plan to make this a year-long literacy center, I highly recommend that you read the Retell Literacy Center Directions for more details and making everything run smooth.

Because you can make this kindergarten activity yourself and once you and your students are hooked on retelling you’ll want to make this a year-long thing.

Here are the materials you’ll need… (may include affiliate book links to Amazon)

Materials

You can make this kindergarten activity yourself! Here are the materials you’ll need…

• The Gingerbread Man Printables {free download}
• Gingerbread Man Masks (alternative)
• Gingerbread Man (stuffed or printable)
• Popsicle Sticks
• Tape
• The Gingerbread Man Book by Karen Schmidt

If you’d rather use masks instead of small characters, then you’ll love my Gingerbread Retelling Prop Masks. Download and print as many masks as your class needs!

What to do

Take your book copy and printed book characters and place them together. A container like an open basket, a book bin or a large Ziploc bag will work!

If you want to turn them into props like I did – be sure to laminate them and add popsicle sticks on the back using strong packing tape.

We liked to keep a blanket nearby these materials so that they could create a theater-like puppet stage to sit behind.

But all they need to do is have the book and the materials and use the props to tell as much as they can:

• about the story
• from the story
• with the story (following along)

Encourage kinders to use as many words from the text as they can remember. With a patterned story like this one, it’s decently easy, especially if you read this story multiple times before you release it to your students.

More versions of The Gingerbread Man we love

If you love reading this story, then I can also recommend these versions of the book to read after.

{I have them ALL!}

• The Gingerbread Boy by Paul Galdone
• The Gingerbread Man by Catherine McCafferty
• The Matzah Man
• The Gingerbread Girl
• The Gingerbread Girl Goes Animal Crackers
• The Gingerbread Cowboy
• Gingerbread Baby
• Gingerbread Friends
• The Gingerbread Pirates
• Bad Boys Get Cookie
• The Gingerbread Man Loose in the School

And you can use these Gingerbread Baby Masks to create another retell activity set!

Conclusion

There you have it – how to make a Gingerbread Man retell activity for your class. I love that it doesn’t require much to get it done. {wink}

If you like this activity, check out this list of 20 more famous stories that are great for retelling in kindergarten. Most of them are just as simple to pull together and I’ve found all of the downloadable resources for you.

Other books that are great for retelling in kindergarten

• Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
• The Little Red Hen
• Cinderella
• The Fat Cat