In the story, the Gingerbread Man escapes from many different people and things. Have children use different materials in the classroom to build traps to catch the Gingerbread Man. Items that they can use to build their traps include blocks, hula hoops, wastepaper baskets, boxes, trash bags and jump ropes. Encourage students to use the materials any way they wish to create a trap for the Gingerbread Man. After building their traps, invite children to share them and explain why they think they'll work. Take a class vote to determine who built the best trap.
After reading the story, have children retell the events that happened by acting out the story. Assign roles to your students: the Gingerbread Man, the Fox, the Old Man, the Old Woman, the Hog, the Horse and the Dog, for example. Photocopy images of the characters from the book and distribute them to the students who are acting out the roles. Have students hold up their pictures to illustrate which role they are playing and encourage them to act out the story.
Have children write the story from their point of view. Encourage them to pretend that they are gingerbread boys and girls and ask them to write a story that tells what they would do if they came to life. Have them draw pictures that illustrate what they would do and encourage them to use inventive spelling or write words phonetically, along with any sight words they know how to spell, for their stories. After they've "written" their stories, ask the children to read them to you and write the correct spelling of the words underneath the misspelled ones. Assemble the completed stories into books. Invite the children to share their stories with the class and place the books in the class library so that children can read them during free time.
Engage your students in a baking activity. Bring in the ingredients for a gingerbread recipe and ask children to help you create the dough. Once the dough is made, roll it out, provide children with man-shaped cookie cutters and instruct them to use the cutters to shape the dough. After baking the cookies, allow children to decorate them with icing, gumdrops and licorice. Enjoy the treats at a class party or package them up for students to take home.