Hours of Gingerbread Man Fun With One Quick Printable

If I said that one quick printable would offer your preschoolers hours of learning and fun, would you print it out? What if I said it was only 13 pages and offered three different activities? What if I said it was FREE? Well, you’ll get all of those things with my Five Little Gingerbread Men Poem and gingerbread man printable!

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The traditional gingerbread man story is one I have always enjoyed.

When I was a little girl, my father purchased a book of folk tales for me one Christmas. I have always loved books, and so this tall, hardbound book with gold leafed boarders was one that I immediately treasured, and I still have it.

Although now the book is well worn. The cover doesn’t sit right anymore due to the binding that is frayed. The beautiful full color illustrations are not as vivid and they no longer have the same gloss, and dare I admit that some of the pages have been torn and dog eared. The book, while one of my most cherished, is now tucked away in a box for safe keeping. It is seldom retrieved due to how delicate and fragile it now is.

While the book may be out of sight, and often out of mind, the stories therein are not. I remember clearly the details of Hanzel and Gretel and The Pied Piper. I loved the story of Rumpelstiltskin, and while I knew the ending I always worried the daughter would not guess the little man’s name and he would steal her baby away.

But my most favorite story from the book of treasured folktales was the story of The Gingerbread Man. While I looked forward to reading stories with my father each night before bed, I liked it best when one my older brother read me The Gingerbread Man. He had voices for the characters, and I thought is was so hilarious when the fox gobbled up the cookie at the end of the story. Mostly because my brother would pretend to greedily eat up a cookie and then wipe the imaginary crumbs from his shirt and lick his fingers…and he didn’t leave out the smacking sounds, either.

Because I love this story so, and because now there are several different versions available, I always like to do some gingerbread man activities with my own children, as well as include them in my preschool instruction.

Five Little Gingerbread Men Printable and Poem

As I said, this short printable has a few different activities. I’m always looking for ways to make the most out of what I already have, so reusing the same preschool printables is helpful.

Five Little Gingerbread Men Poem

First off, I’m sharing a poem with you. It’s super cute and super fun, and my preschoolers adore it! Especially my 2-3’s class. They cannot get enough of it!

Included is not only this super cute print out of the words, but also an empty tray with gingerbread men you can cut out and use for counting. My preschoolers love seeing the gingerbread men sit up and run away.

Five Little Gingerbread Men Counting Booklet

After my class became familiar with the Five Little Gingerbread Man poem, I introduced them to the accompanying counting booklet. This allows my preschoolers to practice their number identification skills, as well as counting with one to one correspondence and even literacy concepts as they work their way through the pages. After reading the booklet to my students, I left it out in the book bin with all our other thematic books for the month. During quiet reading time they have the option of selecting the booklet to read to themselves.

Five Little Gingerbread Men Composing Five Activity

This activity is a really fun way to teach preschoolers basic addition concepts. Using the printable pages from the counting booklet, preschoolers can practice composing five.

Select a page and ask your little one to identify the number on it. Then using the gingerbread men cutouts from the poem, invite your child to add enough gingerbread men to the tray to make five total.

This activity teaches children to “count on” which is a difficult, but necessary skill, in math.

Five Little Gingerbread Men Hide and Seek Game  (BONUS!)

Ok, this was something that I completely threw together on a whim, but my children think it is so fun! We count the gingerbread men poem in reverse.

Begin by hiding the gingerbread men in the room. Not so hidden that the children can’t find the cookies, but enough that there is a tiny bit of searching.

Present the empty tray. Say something to the effect of, “Uh oh! All our gingerbread men have run away! We have to go catch them!”

Invite your child to find one gingerbread man the return it to the tray. Count the total on the tray, and then repeat the above by saying something like, “Oh! Now we have one gingerbread man, but we are missing four …We have to find the others.”

Continue until all the gingerbread men have been found.

A Note on the Extras

I included two sets of gingerbread men to be cut out. One set fits perfectly on the empty tray printable, while the other set does not. The purpose of the larger set is so that if you are a preschool teacher who has a larger class, the bigger gingerbread men would be a better visual for those children. But don’t forget that the smaller set is just the right size for small groups and even centers!

Get Your Little Gingerbread Man Printable

You can get your gingerbread man printable by filling out the form below and the printable will be sent to your inbox.

With all this fun with the Five Little Gingerbread Men poem, you can see why I love sharing this story with my preschoolers and my children. The story itself reminds me of happy memories from my childhood, of a father who read stories to me every night and a silly older brother who would do anything to make me laugh. Of course, I want to share some gingerbread man activities with my own preschoolers.

Gingerbread Man Stories We Love

The fun thing about the story of the Gingerbread Man, is that now there are several different versions and spin offs. These are some of our favorites.

Sarah Punkoney, MAT

I’m Sarah, an educator turned stay-at-home-mama of five! I’m the owner and creator of Stay At Home Educator, a website about intentional teaching and purposeful learning in the early childhood years. I’ve taught a range of levels, from preschool to college and a little bit of everything in between. Right now my focus is teaching my children and running a preschool from my home. Credentials include: Bachelors in Art, Masters in Curriculum and Instruction.

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