Gingerbread man word families

During the month of December, I like to spend a week using different versions of the Gingerbread Boy during my literacy block. Scholastic even offers a new version called The Gingerbread Girl, which my class really enjoyed. As an extension activity I created these gingerbread -an family books as an adaptation of sound boxes and word building.
To make the actual book I used a gingerbread man cookie cutter as a tracer. I traced and drew the page pictured here. Then I traced a paper with 9 "boy"shapes, copied them, cut them out and stapled them on the page shown to make the book.

I've used this both as a whole group guided writing activity, or as a small group during a guided reading lesson. It is a fun way to incorporate thematic instruction with phonics!