Grade: Elementary

#1401. Unit Lesson on The Gingerbread Man

Reading/Writing, level: Elementary
Posted Sun Nov 14 07:29:22 PST 1999 by Georgeann O'Connell (Pink010947@aol.com).
Northeast Elementary School, Brentwood, New York
Materials Required: Book-The Gingerbread Man (2 versions), teacher-made gingerbread shaped sequencing cards
Activity Time: Week long unit which includes several lessons
Concepts Taught: Retelling, sequencing, characterization, rewriting

Lesson Plan For Gingerbread Man Unit


Georgeann O'Connell Northeast Elementary School
Subject: Reading/Writing Classification III - LD

Objectives of Lesson:

1. Students will sequence the main events of the story, The Gingerbread Man into chronological order.
2. Students will rewrite the story changing characters and settings.

Rationale:

This lesson is part of a unit of study on the gingerbread man. This unit will include: The teacher reading aloud the big book, The Gingerbread Man, choral reading of the story, as well as self-directed reading of individual books of the story by students. Following the reading sessions, the students will do various activities with the story, two of which are included in the observation lesson.
Prior Activities to Observation Lesson:
The students will be engaged in a weeklong unit on the book, The Gingerbread Man. They will begin the lesson by doing a KWL on the subject of gingerbread men. They will also make predictions about the story.
The teacher will read the big book edition of The Gingerbread Man to the class. Students and Teacher will make a chart for setting and characters upon second reading of book. The students will then read individual books of the same story along with the teacher. The teacher will remind the students to pay close attention to the characters and setting, as well as the sequence of the story. The teacher along with the students will reread the story and outline, with highlighters, characters and settings of the story.
By Friday, the students should be well acquainted with the story and able to manipulate the information in the story.

Materials for Lesson:

1. Big Book -- The Gingerbread Man
2. Individual books of story: The Gingerbread Man
3. Gingerbread men sequencing cards for Teacher and individual gingerbread men cards for students.
4. Teacher-made booklets for students to rewrite story
5. Gingerbread men cookies
6. Gingerbread men cutouts for follow-up activity
Introduction to Observation Lesson:

The teacher will ask the children what they remember about the story, The Gingerbread Man. She will point to charts made beforehand. She will ask the students to retell the story to recall the information in the story, as well as assess comprehension of prior individual reading sessions. Students will have their individual books to refer to if needed.

Body of Lesson: 1. Sequencing of Events

Following the retelling of the story and checking the information on the charts, the teacher will give out two small plastic bags to each student. Students will be divided into two groups: one group will receive gingerbread men with pictures and writing on them and the second group will receive gingerbread men with writing only on them. Group one will be (Reading level: Primer-1) and Group two will be (Reading levels: 1-1, 1-5, 2-1).
The teacher will have a set of larger gingerbread men with writing on one side and a picture on the other to use in front of the class. The class and the teacher will do this together with volunteers from the class coming up to the board to put the gingerbread men in order.
The children at the blackboard will only be given three or four cards to choose from depending on group. The teacher will add cards as the sequencing progressing. (A small number of cards enable better success).
The children at their seats will be given two bags of cards. Bag one will contain cards 1 to 4, and bag two will have cards 5 to 8 in them to sequence with the teacher.
The students will keep the gingerbread cards to paste to a long strip of construction paper at another time (Review of sequencing event).

Lesson 2 -- Rewriting Story

The sequencing of the story events will lead into the writing activity. The teacher will discuss the events of the story and ask the students what they thought about the story and will ask, "Could we change the characters and setting of the story and still have a gingerbread man story?"
The teacher will review the information on the setting/character chart. She will then hand out student copies of the gingerbread man booklet for rewriting. She will read through the booklet and then give an example of changing the setting and characters using the first pages of the student booklet. She will then ask several students what characters or settings they would change in their story for each page. After that, she will ask if anyone has any questions and the students will begin to rewrite their stories. The teacher and teacher-assistant will help students with spelling of words to help with making this a successful reading/writing activity. The children will read their stories to the class.

Follow-up Lessons:

The next lesson in the unit will be to read another version of The Gingerbread Man and compare the two in a Venn diagram.
The last lesson will be to cut out two large gingerbread men on brown construction paper and punch holes around them. Then the children paint a face, buttons and trim on the front of their gingerbread man and sew and stuff the two pieces together.
The unit will be culminated with eating gingerbread cookies for a snack.

You can contact me at: Pink010947@aol.com for further information about teacher-made materials.