Top: Long ago, bakers in Europe made gingerbread cookies.
Bottom: ginger root
Bakers made cookies with ginger root. They made them in shapes like flowers and animals.
Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images (Queen Elizabeth I); The Protected Art Archive /Alamy Stock Photo (Hansel and Gretel); CAROLINE ERIKSSON (Darth Vader); Shutterstock.com (All Other Images)
The Story of Gingerbread
Gingerbread is sweet and spicy! How did this holiday treat get its start?
By Janice Behrens
From the December 2025/January 2026 Issue
Learning Objective: Students will follow an infographic to understand how gingerbread has changed over time.
1. A Thousand Years Ago
2. Royal Cookies
Queen Elizabeth the First of England
More cookies, please!
Later a queen had an idea. She wanted cookies shaped like people. Her royal bakers made gingerbread men.
3. Gingerbread Houses
Bakers in Germany made cookie houses like the one in the story.
Other bakers made cookie houses at the same time. They probably got the idea from the old story “Hansel and Gretel.”
4. Holiday Treat
Hundreds of years later, gingerbread became popular here. It became a holiday treat.
5. Gingerbread Contests
Luke, I am your gingerbread cookie!
Today, people make some wild things from gingerbread. They have contests for coolest cookies!
Activities
(3)
Skills Activities
Answer Key
(1)
More About the Article
English Language Arts Focus
Sequencing
Nonfiction text features
Social Studies Focus
History of food
Step-by-Step Lesson Plan
Implementation
- Whole group
- Small group
Pairings and Text Connections
- From the Storyworks 1 archive: “Mini History: The True Story of Birthday Cakes” (December 2023/January 2024); “Mini History: The True Story of Popsicles” (December 2022/January 2023)
Before-Reading Resources
- Vocabulary slideshow (5 minutes) ginger root, royal, popular
Suggested Reading Focus
How things change over time (20 minutes)
- Preview the article with students. Explain that it is an infographic, which arranges pictures and text in a way that gives you information.
- Tell children that you will be learning about the history of gingerbread. Build excitement by asking what they know about gingerbread. Have they ever eaten it? What does it taste like?
- Read the article. After each section, pause and check comprehension by asking students to summarize how gingerbread has changed.
- After reading, ask students to recall how gingerbread has changed over time. Encourage them to use temporal words, like first, next, then, and finally.
After-Reading Skills Practice
- Skills: adjectives; key details; writing and labeling (15 minutes)
Text-to-Speech