by Laura Murray
The Gingerbread Man, made by the kids in the class, gets lonely during recess and, fearing that he has been left behind, sets off in the school with a few incidents along the way.
Strategies/Skills Used
Reading Strategy 1: Access background knowledge.
Reading Strategy 5: Make mental pictures.
Reading Strategy 6: Connect what you read with what you already know.
Reading Strategy 7: Determine the most important ideas and events and the relationship between them.
Reading Strategy 10: Summarize what has been read.
Reading Strategy 11: Make inferences and draw conclusions.
Reading Strategy 12: Reflect and respond.
TEACHING THE ACTIVITY: PRE-READING
(1) Explain to the students that in this lesson they will be working on an important comprehension strategy: making mental images to match a powerful description.
(2) Use the Guided Imagery process with a visual description of a freshly baked gingerbread cookie.
(3) Have students turn knee-to-knee and eye-to-eye to discuss what is left of their cookies (as per imaging).
(4) Initiate conversation about the students’ experiences with gingerbread cookies and explain how that background knowledge will help them process the text.
TEACHING THE ACTIVITY: DURING READING
(5) Begin reading the book without showing the cover. Model the Think Aloud process to build anticipation and to identify the rhythm, rhyme and repetition of the text.
(6) Use Listen-Sketch-Predict to process the text, stopping at three points where the Gingerbread Man is in danger – on the dodge ball, in somebody’s lunch and in the principal’s chair.
(7) Have students create a final image for Listen-Sketch-Predict to show the Gingerbread Man in his new house, with their reflection of the story in the adjacent frame.
TEACHING THE ACTIVITY: POST-READING
(8) Collect artifacts from your school for a Paper Bag Presentation to reflect and respond to the story.
(9) Use pre-baked or in-school baked gingerbread men to personalize your school site with a discovery journey in mapping.
(10) Stage a missing Gingerbread Man event to inspire the creation of Missing/Wanted posters.