Gang of gingerbread men cause ruckus before meeting their sweet demise

By Stuart Hedstrom 
Staff Writer

    DOVER-FOXCROFT —Some freshly-made gingerbread men ended up making trouble across the SeDoMoCha School on Dec. 12, as students in Erica Tapley’s kindergarten class discovered. But the treats ended up paying for their mischief as the youngsters followed the trail to find the gingerbread men and enjoy them as a snack.

Photos courtesy of Erica Tapley

    THE GINGERBREAD MEN WERE HERE — Students in Erica Tapley’s kindergarten class at SeDoMoCha Elementary discovered a trail of mischief around the building left by a group of freshly-made gingerbread men on the morning of Dec. 12. The excited youngsters caught up to the 20 gingerbread men and then enjoyed them as a snack.

    Tapley explained her students had been studying different versions of the gingerbread man story. “As kind of an end to the unit we made gingerbread men this morning and they ran away, so we went on a hunt for them,” she said, just like the character the kindergartners read about.
    The 20 gingerbread men made a mess in the students’ classroom, such as tipping over some chairs, stacking others and leaving evidence for the youngsters to follow. “They made a gingerbread man sticking out his tongue and then they messed everything up,” said Rosalyn Povak. “They tipped over the blocks and they spilled out the reading buddies. They went in the nurse’s room, and they made a mess in the library and the office.”
    The gingerbread men did leave the first of several notes for the students. Tapley said along the trail they discovered the gingerbread men had “played with Mrs. McNulty’s money in the office and in the music room they played with all of Mrs. Young’s jingle bells.” The trouble-makers also messed up books in the library and had opened some Band-Aids in the nurse’s area.
    Eventually the runaway gingerbread men were located. “We decorated them and ate them fast so they couldn’t keep making a mess in the school,” Tapley said
    “They were yummy once we caught them, finally,” Molly Burton said. Classmate Joshua Sinclair added that he ate the feet first so his gingerbread man could not run away again.
    The final note from the gingerbread men was left in the classroom, wishing them a happy holidays and saying their class was the best.