Speech Therapy
Gingerbread Activities

Gingerbread cookies, gingerbread houses, the Gingerbread Man Book, and the Gingerbread Baby are classics for the holiday season. With our speech therapy gingerbread FREE activities, you can target almost any speech and language skills. 

Don't worry...you don't have to bake any cookies! We have A LOT of free printable activities for you!!

Gingerbread Speech and Language Activities (Story Companions)

First off, we have FREE story Companions for:

• The Gingerbread Man
• The Gingerbread Baby (my personal favorite)

Note: Personally, I think the original Gingerbread Man book is quite traumatizing. I know some like it, so I made who/where picture cards. I am more comfortable with the ending of the Gingerbread Baby. If you haven't read this book yet, PLEASE DO! It's amazing and has a lot more language practice and better illustrations. Click on image below for more info.

These story companions are meant to be functional and meaningful. There are no silly worksheets. Instead, there are prompts, visuals, and cues. These materials can be used to pre-teach vocab, answer questions, expanding utterances, categorize, etc... functionally and naturally while reading a Gingerbread Book.

Who and Where Cards:

• Used for answering questions while reading
• Vocabulary practice
• Categorization (animals, people, colors, function)
• Use in sentence strips

Sentence Strips Uses:

• Increasing sentence length
• Grammar structures: verb tense, direct/indirect objects, prepositions
• Learning feelings/prediction skills
• I would laminate all the cards and attach velcro so they can be used over and over.

Story Retell: 

• Use cards to aid in story retell 
• Practice sequencing of events in a story

Gingerbread Activities (Story or No Story companion)

There are 3 different activities that can be a companion for a Gingerbread Man/Baby story but it doesn't have to be.

There are 3 different activities:

• Filling a basket with gingerbread cookies
• Decorating a gingerbread cookie
• Decorating a gingerbread house

All of these activities require cutting the pictures and gluing them on paper. You will be able to practice MANY different speech and language skills using these pictures and the activities above. 

Vocabulary

To work on vocabulary with young children, skip the flashcards. Seriously, skip them! Please! The best way to learn vocabulary is through structured play.

For more info on vocabulary learning, check out preschool/elementary vocabulary learning. 

Following Directions: Preschool to Early Elementary

Following directions requires a person to know vocabulary, have working memory skills, and adequate attention.

Below are some practice ideas for following directions while either decorating a gingerbread man or house or filling a basket with gingerbread cookies.

Remember, to be aware of your child's/student's language ability and receptive vocabulary. Pay attention to the "direction words" that you use. 

Sequential: This type of direction is multi-step where something has to be done first, second, etc..

• First, glue on the eyes and then glue on the smile. 

Before/After:  This is a temporal direction. Your child has to do something before or after he/she does something else. This is TRICKY!

• Before you put the star cookie in your basket, put a gingerbread man.

Spatial:  Give a direction with a spatial aspect (under, over, above)

• Put the candy cane under the sucker

Basic: Basic means one-step, simple directions. If your child is having trouble, start here!

• Give me a cookie

Complex Language Tasks: Toddler to Early Elementary Students

This is my FAVORITE language game. If you have been here before, you know all about it. If you are new, keep reading!

No Hands (How to Play):

For this game, put all the cookies, candy, or gingerbread parts (whichever activity you are doing) on the table. Make sure to cut them out ahead of time.

Each student or child gets a turn to choose a decoration to glue on the house/basket/gingerbread man. HOWEVER, no one can point to the desired pictures (hence the "no hands" name).

Instead, each person has to describe which picture they want using some sort of attribute such as color, size, pattern, shape, category, or function.

You can also target:

• Grammar (verb tense, complete sentences, complex sentences)
• Length of utterance 
• Vocabulary

Executive Functioning: Toddler to Early Elementary Students

Executive function skills are our abilities to plan, control impulses and emotions, multi-task, pay and shift attention, and organize. Our executive functioning skills will continue to develop as our frontal lobe continues to grow; however, we can start things off on the right foot!

1. Plan out everything needed to make a gingerbread house/fill a basked/decorate a gingerbread cookie. 
2. Sequence steps needed to complete the project. Focus on using sequence words while discussing steps (i.e., FIRST put up the tree, NEXT put the lights on, etc…)
3. Talk about safety/rules when using glue and scissors

Speech Activities

You can practice articulation skills while completing any of the activities above. 

Just make a list of words containing your child's target sound before beginning an activity. Make sure to model many correct productions (auditory bombardment) and provide needed cues to help your child say the desired sound. If you need more information, read articulation therapy for how to do speech therapy at home and access free word lists!

If you are going to use the printable activities (not story companions), you can use the games as a re-enforcer during drill practice. Once a child says their sound/word/sentence, # (you decide the amount) times, give he/she the desired picture to glue on paper.

Want more functional therapy ideas?

For a limited time, try our membership site for FREE for one week to see if it fits your needs. 

Learn more here. 

Open Speech Therapy Gingerbread Activities for FREE

Okay, thanks for hanging in there with me. Just answer the questions below, and the next webpage will have all the activities you need! Enjoy!

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Consider The Membership Program...It Pays For Itself

Since these story companions are:

• so popular,
• easy to use for both parents and professionals,
• extremely beneficial for children,
• versatile, and
• adaptable

I have decided to create ONE story book companion PER MONTH for the membership portion of this site. Therefore, if you join Speech Therapy Talk Services, LLC, you will have one NEW story book companion per month plus all the old story companions (plus the other hundreds of pages of materials, games, and guides).

Since story companions are $5 each and our membership is only $5.99, joining pretty much pays for itself.

Not only will you have access to story companions, you will have access to:

• Articulation guides (Spanish and English)
• Articulation cards
• Functional language games
• Parent handouts (Spanish and English)
• Documentaion templates
• Quick print therapy materials for grammar, vocabulary, story retell, following directions, and more!
• RTI materials (screenings, handouts, classroom strategies)
• Motivational tools
• Visuals schedules
• and more!

So...for only $1 extra dollar, you will have access to all of this PLUS one new monthly story companion. 

If you want to try it for a week for FREE, sign up here.

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