Gingerbread Man Activities

Looking for gingerbread man activities? We’ve got you covered. From gingerbread men to gingerbread houses to gingerbread cookies, it’s the theme of gingerbread for this festive season! Can you smell the ginger? Ah, it’s so cozy and the theme of gingerbread is so classic and fun! Browse an old blog post from The OT Toolbox to find gingerbread activities for kids by kids. Lots of fun ideas in that post as well as some new ideas in this post! You can also find a Cardboard Gingerbread House idea.

Use these activities with our decorate a gingerbread house slide deck and our gingerbread man handwriting and fine motor slide deck.

GINGERBREAD MAN ACTIVITIES

Included below are gingerbread man books that you can pair with hands-on activities. The gingerbread man ideas below build fine motor skills, gross motor skills, motor planning, direction-following, and sensory exploration. Let’s get started with the holiday activities!

You can’t go the season without reading at least one gingerbread man book. So grab one or more of these gingerbread-related books and work on critical thinking and early literacy skills!

GINGERBREAD MAN BOOKS

Take a look at these gingerbread man books: (Amazon links included below.) These are great books to use along with therapeutic activities.

The Gingerbread Man
Gingerbread Baby
Gingerbread Friends
Gingerbread Christmas
The Gingerbread Man Loose at School
The Gingerbread Boy
The Gingerbread Girl
The Gingerbread Cowboy
Gingerbread Mouse
The Gingerbread Pirates

This Gingerbread Man book activity from Fun-A-Day pairs well with these books.

GINGERBREAD MAN CRAFTS

Do you have visions of colorfully decorated gingerbread houses or some icing covered gingerbread men? Crafts are the supreme skill builder for kiddos and highly motivating.

Crafts can work on scissor cutting, drawing, coloring, tool grasp, glue management, direction following, and sequencing. Now, let’s craft some gingerbread goodies.

This fun gingerbread man stapling craft is a super fun way to build a gingerbread man while working on stapler use that incorporates strength, bilateral coordination, visual motor control, and precision handling.

Craft a fun paper bag gingerbread house using office stickers galore! Stickers are an easy way to work on pincer grasp, bilateral coordination, spatial awareness with placement, and hand dominance.

Craft a fun plate of gingerbread cookies using a paper plate and paper bag being sure to decorate with crayons. Don’t forget broken crayons color too and they can be better for kids to work on their tool grasp!

Maybe a collage art gingerbread man is more what your kiddos would enjoy. Providing a tray of decorating goodies can give a child the opportunity for creativity and independence. But if you’re looking for more therapeutic benefits, you can incorporate body awareness and multiple fine motor skills.

Provide a fun gingerbread man lacing craft that automatically incorporates fine motor precision, pincer grasp, motor planning, eye-hand coordination and bilateral hand use.

Here is a baby gingerbread house from Pre-K Pages that works fine motor skills, too.

Plus, they turn out super cute.

Gingerbread Man Gross Motor

Maybe you have the need for some energy consuming gingerbread movement! So many gingerbread books provide action words that can easily be utilized for movement exercises. Try substituting these actions with various movements you need your child to practice.

Use these Gingerbread Man gross motor activities as a brain breaks for a physical break in the classroom, at home, or during a transition. Brain break movement activities can involve so many different body moves with a wonderfully festive theme!

Here’s an activity that you can try called, Gingerbread Man Gross Motor Activity. It combines the simple idea of gross motor skills and literacy skills.

You can also try these fun Gingerbread Man Gross Motor Dice printables to further incorporate movements related to the book. Read and move together!

Try Gingerbread Passing to work on core strength, coordination, motor planning, and social skills. It’s a great team work activity or it can be simplified to have one child work on passing a gingerbread man from one place to another.

Try this fun idea of some Gingerbread Hokey Pokey using a classic game with a gingerbread theme to work on body awareness and motor planning.

Gingerbread Man Fine Motor

Feeling the need to focus on fine motor or visual motor skills, maybe? How about drawing, handwriting or visual perception? Read on to find some great activity ideas.

Here are some fun Gingerbread Letter Tracing Sheets or Gingerbread Prewriting Strips or Gingerbread Letter Tracing Strips to work on pencil control, letter formation and letter size.

Need a low prep Gingerbread Man Cutting activity to work on bilateral hand skills and eye hand coordination along with scissor grasp? Try this fun idea! Maybe cardboard is too difficult for your kiddos to cut, so simply change to paper or even sandpaper for a fun approach.

Maybe using scissors is not the skill level of your child so try a Gingerbread Pom-Pom Match activity and use tongs as a pre-scissor skill.

How about a Gingerbread Man I-Spy activity that is perfect for visual scanning and discrimination? It’s a simple print and go for therapeutic fun!

Do you have a child working on spoon use? Try this fun Feed the Gingerbread Man printable to set up a low prep scoop and pour activity or use tongs to feed the gingerbread man.

Maybe simple Gingerbread Theme Play Dough Mats are all you are looking for to have kiddos work on fine motor hand skills.

Gingerbread Sensory Activities

This post started with a list and now it’s ending with a list! There are always children who need the sensory input or need to work on sensory tolerance provided by multiple sensory-related activities. Take a look at the list below and click on each item to read the details of how to create these varied sensory goodies all within the gingerbread theme!

Gingerbread Salt Dough
Gingerbread Play Dough
Gingerbread Slime
Gingerbread Rice
Gingerbread Oobleck
Gingerbread Cloud Dough
Gingerbread Salt Tray
Gingerbread Paint
Gingerbread Sensory Bottles
Gingerbread Sensory Bags

Now, run, run, as fast you can…and prepare some fun gingerbread activities for the kiddos in your life as all of these activities are super skill builders for children at all levels of development! There’s something about this time of year and gingerbread.  The scent of ginger in the kitchen makes this time of year so warm and cozy!  

Christmas Handwriting Activities

Writing out that Christmas wish list is a difficult task that brings out tears instead of holiday excitement.  I’ve got a solution for your kiddo with handwriting difficulties: a packet of modified paper for all of the Christmas handwriting tasks that come up each year.  Use this handwriting pack to help kids who struggle with handwriting to participate in holiday traditions while even working on and developing their handwriting skills!
Working on handwriting with kids this Christmas season? Grab your copy of the Christmas Modified Handwriting Packet. It’s got three types of adapted paper that kids can use to write letters to Santa, Thank You notes, holiday bucket lists and much more…all while working on handwriting skills in a motivating and fun way! Read more about the adapted Christmas Paper here.