Gingerbread Baby: A Joyful ABC Big Book Free Template

Inside: This is an updated post. Make a big class book about the Gingerbread Baby!

In December I always taught a Gingerbread Unit. One of the things I liked to do was have the kids make a class book.

We would typically spend a couple of days making our big book and it was SO worth it!

Creating a class book brings together everyone’s ideas, drawings, and stories into one big collection.

Each child adds something unique, making this book not just a project, but a celebration of creativity, teamwork, and the joy of learning together.

Here’s how to make a book like ours!

Step 1: What Can the Gingerbread Baby Do?

The first thing we do is read Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett.

If you’ve never read this book before, now’s the time. It’s such a charming rendition of the classic Gingerbread Man.

Step 2: Brainstorm

After reading the book, the whole class brainstorms together all the things the gingerbread baby can do for EACH LETTER OF THE ALPHABET.

I’m not gonna lie… this part was a little challenging. But it really encourages the kids to think hard.

I have a list of examples here to get you started. It’s best if the ideas come from the kids, but obviously they’re going to need some help for the best wording, etc.

You could write the book using just one word per page, but it’s more fun to encourage your students to come up with several words. Here’s what I mean:

Step 3: Start writing

Each child is assigned (or chooses) a letter of the alphabet and writes a sentence (see the poster above).

For primary kids I always make sure that everyone uses the same sentence structure. That way it’s much easier for everyone in the class to read!

For that reason, everyone gets a page that includes the start of the sentence, like this one:

Most people don’t have 26 kids in their primary class. I hope!

So for the extra pages you can assign them to eager volunteers. I found I always had plenty of students who were happy to write and colour a second page.

Step 4: Finish Up!

After all the pages are coloured I bind them together and the kids have a really cute classroom book.

If you know it’s going to get heavy use (and it will) then be sure to laminate the cover and end pages (or even the whole thing).

Oh! And if your school doesn’t have a book binding machine, then just put the pages into a duotang. Easy peasy.

Step 5: Practice

But wait! There’s more.

You don’t want to just throw the book up on the bookshelf and hope for the best.

It’s important to practice reading it many times with the whole class, especially for Kindies and first graders, so everyone feels successful.

There are a few fun ways to do this:

1. Sit in a circle and everyone takes turns reading the page they wrote.
2. Project the pages onto your screen with your doc cam so that everyone can read the book together. We used to do this during morning meeting.
3. Make 4 or 5 copies (which you should do anyway) and practice reading it in your guided reading groups.
   

DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE COPY: What Can the Gingerbread Baby Do?

Be sure to check out the rest of my Christmas posts!

And the gingerbread posts. I have a few!