Can’t Catch Me… I’m the NINJABREAD Man!
After we stumbled across Samurai Santa at our public library recently, we had ninjas on the brain. (And really, who can blame us?! It’s a pretty fascinating topic when you’re six.) Some more searching led us to The Ninjabread Man, (affiliate disclosure) written by C. J. Leigh & illustrated by Chris Gall. I am sort of the opposite of a chef, let alone a baker, so I knew there was very little chance any actual gingerbread cookies would be coming out of my oven this holiday season. The Ninjabread Man seemed like the perfect compromise to give #thebigone a little bit of a chance to ‘decorate cookies’ without requiring me to actually bake, or piling up dishes for the hubs to do either. (Oh, and bonus, no calories. You’re welcome!)
After reading the book and talking a little bit about the Ninjabread Man’s adventures, we set about decorating some ‘cookies’. I used the free printable template to trace and cut out our gingerbread men shapes, but tracing a cookie cutter you already have would also work well. We decided to make a batch of a few cookie varieties- a thin piece of cork, some embossed felt, and a textured piece of brown fabric. We liked the idea of the varying tones and textures. Sandpaper, construction or kraft paper, or patterned paper would also make cute options.
I assembled some extras to stick on as the ‘candy’… We used some round stickers, some googly eyes (crafter’s must-have!), and pom-poms for our project. Sequins, rhinestones, pieces of ribbon and ric-rac, or spare buttons would also be great add-ons, depending on what you have on hand at home. For our icing, we pulled out some puffy paint- squeezing these bottles are great for hand strength in little ones, and my kid’s obsessed with this sort of paint, so it was a win-win for us.
Using the glue and ‘icing’ we put together our three ninjabread man. This is a great project for an older child to work on independently- once the supplies are assembled, it’s a manageable task for them to glue & stick without a lot of adult intervention. If you’re feeling extra ambitious or artistic, it would be really fun create a background for your ninjabread men to be glued onto- we didn’t get this far, but I would love to see our set against some bamboo plants, etc, like in the book.
If you wanted to take this book-inspired fun a step further (and you’re a more domestically gifted parent than I am!) these Fred & Friends NINJABREAD MEN Cookie Cutters, Set of 3 (affiliate disclosure) look adorable, and you’d get to eat cookies at the end too!
There are SO many variations of the gingerbread man story available today- does your family have a favorite? Let me know in the comments!
If you are thinking about adding this book to your home library, please consider purchasing via my Amazon Affiliate link below- you’ll get a book that we love & highly recommend at no additional cost to you, while I earn a small commission that allows me to be home with my kiddos. Win-win, right?!
Printable Template
I’ve got lots of great ideas for building more fun into the books you read together with your kids!