Brown Paper Gingerbread Baby

This art activity was inspired by Jan Brett's Gingerbread Baby. To learn more about the book and to see all our Gingerbread Baby activities, click here. 

We do enjoy a good paper bag activity, and felt it would be the perfect paper to use to create a Gingerbread Baby for your house. Our first plan included stapling, then stuffing, then lacing,…and then we stopped. We feel it is so much more fun for young readers (and less stressful for their parents!) if they can be involved from the very beginning or any project. The focus should be the fun and the process, not the perfect finished project. So, we thought it through a bit more and changed our plan. We hope it inspires you to fill your house with creative, one of a kind Gingerbread Babies.

What You Will Need

• Brown Paper Bag (or a roll of butcher paper, or a large sheet of brown construction paper)
• Pencil
• Marker
• Scissors
• Glue
• Decorating items – buttons, feathers, beads, fabric scraps, pom poms, stickers, etc.

 

How We Made It

1. If using a bag: Cut one large side from a brown paper grocery bag.
2. Using a pencil, draw a large basic gingerbread man cookie shape on the paper. 
3. Trace the pencil drawing with marker to make it easier for young readers to see and cut out. Tracing is great for fine motor skills if your young reader’s skills are at that level.
4. Have (or help) young readers cut out the cookie shape.  This is more great practice for fine motor skills.
5. Decorate!

 

Why we enjoy this activity:

• Using the paper grocery bag is a fun way to create art and recycle at the same time.
• It’s fun to watch the creativity flow as kids enjoy the decorating process.
• Who doesn’t love a giant cookie? (Even if it is paper!)