GINGERBREAD WEEK with an easy & cheap lapbook design

We just finished up the week talking about the gingerbread man, house, mouse, and baby. I found the "GINGERBREAD BABY", "GINGERBREAD MAN", "GINGERBREAD MOUSE", and we learned about the history about gingerbread houses. They also worked on their lap book that I created from a frew printable that I found on numerous websites.(I explained further about the lap book next.) We made peppermint hot chocolate with a candy cane. We are going to make both a paper gingerbread house and also a gingerbread mini house out of graham crackers and peanut butter as glue, marshmellow christmas trees, and sugar free candy. I will take pictures this weekend after they are made.

I know my household is on a tight budget, and we are always trying to find new ways to get the message across to our children in a fun way. I love lap books, but those vanilla file folders are not cheap. I have found a way to use those cheap three prong 2 pocket folders. At the beginning of the school year's back to school sales, you can get these folders very cheap. I have seen them as cheap as five cents each.



What I do is take two of these folders, either cut off one side or use both and tape them in the middle where the prongs are. I currently used one for my son's Gingerbread man/baby lap book theme. I had found some wonderful units, themes, lap book, and miscellaneous printables to put into this lap book. I have also laminated everything in the lap book so that it can be reused by my sons and even in the future by my daughter(she is only 1 yrs right now). I love for the fact that I can place these neatly in a hanging file folder with other printables for that theme, including crafts and projects.

This gingerbread lap book has a puzzle (removable pieces) on the front with their name plate on it, then on the first opening there is a house with the gingerbread baby inside the door (stuck on with Velcro (removable), the Upper & lower alphabet recognition cards, gingerbread man counting book, two questions pertaining to a gingerbread story book, making patterns, and animals in the book recognition. Then the next section has the Gingerbread Baby game from Jan Brett, colors and shapes sorter cards, gingerbread man spelling cards, worksheets (prewriting, gingerbread G tracer pages, another pattern recognition sheet, Size sequencing cards, and Eating a gingerbread man order of sequence cards (gingerbread men are stuck on with velcro to place all pieces on the table for the child). On the back I got a blank gingerbread man and I wrote the instructions for my sons to take 4 objects of different sizes and to trace around the outside of the gingerbread man and see how many it will take, and then to graph their results. I have found that I can get a lot more on these folders then I can with the file folder idea. I also like the idea of having the two pockets in the folder to house the worksheets and booklets.

This lapbook cost me the time to pint out the sheets, the lil ink for the printer, about 20 laminating pouches (6.99 for 50 at BJ's warehouse), two 3 prong pocket folder (free- had them among my supples), clear shipping tape, and a child eager to learn.

I would like to thank these following bloggers for their wonderful FREE printables. My sons also thank you too.

prekinders.com/gingerbread-theme/
mrsnelsonsclass gingerbread poems, printables, lessons, and stories
homeschoolshare