The most requested book at story time in our toddler room is the Ginger bread Man and it is a firm favourite. Often Seamus, Aine, Robyn, Roisin and Aoife will join in the story telling and sing “Run run as fast as you can. You can’t catch me I’m the Ginger bread Man!”

The Toddlers love to point at the animals and name them and get very excited when they spot the fox especially. James is always out to spot the fox when he does he says “Look the sneaky fox is going to eat the Gingerbread Man!” in warning.

During play the children often pretend to make their own Gingerbread Man. Roisin says that “It’s important to have milk when making gingerbread”. Robyn got a large bowl and made big stirring actions to mix her ingredients. The children then pretended to eat their gingerbread just like the fox! One or two of the toddlers even offered to share with our adult Toddler team. Yummy!

Inspired by our gingerbread play we decided to extend this further by introducing a craft activity to the children. The children painted their own Gingerbread Man and chose what to add as decoration.

Ellie told us she would like to be a Gingerbread Man and even tried painting her own face orange to see how it felt. All the toddlers were specific as to what colour buttons to put on their own man. Many of them distinguishing between blue and purple.

During small group when playing with play dough Roisin found a cutter in the shape of a Gingerbread Man. Roisin showed her cut out Gingerbread Man to her friend. She did an excellent job sharing and helping her friends to use the cutter also.