The Case Of The Missing Gingerbread Men

By Susan Coney

Preschool teacher Cyndi Cascone, from Wesley Learning Center, devised a clever way to introduce her students to community workers in Newtown. Ms Cascone first shared with her students the classic story of The Gingerbread Man and then gave the wiggly 4-year-olds the opportunity to get their fingers sticky by rolling, cutting and decorating their own gingerbread man. With no oven available in the classroom, their teacher told the children that she would take the gingerbread men home to bake them in her oven promising to return the next day with a delicious cookie for each child. Then the unthinkable happened, the gingerbread men mysteriously escaped from Ms Cascone’s oven.

When Ms Cascone told the preschoolers the unfortunate news the group brainstormed ways to get the gingerbread men back. Short of putting out an Amber Alert, the children decided instead to make decorative boxes to serve as traps hoping to lure the gingerbread men in. Ms Cascone placed the traps around Newtown in hopes of retrieving all of the missing gingerbread men. Some of the sites where the traps were placed were the Booth Library, the police station, My Place Restaurant, Newtown Florist, and Andrea’s Bakery. Several children checked in at those locations from time to time, with the help of their parents, to see if the traps had snagged any of the missing men.

Low and behold, members of the community began calling Ms Cascone saying that indeed the traps had worked and the gingerbread men were being captured one by one throughout the Newtown community. For the past two weeks, the naughty gingerbread men have been returned to the children, each one being brought in by the community worker who found them. As the gingerbread men were returned the community workers who brought them back to the preschool, they were invited in by Ms Cascone to speak with the children about what they do in their jobs.

On Thursday, November 17, John Tambascio, co-owner of My Place Restaurant, visited Wesley Learning Center. He brought with him the trap box and the sneaky gingerbread boy still ensnared inside. After returning the gingerbread boy, Mr Tambascio told the children what he did for a living as the owner of a restaurant. “I make pizza for people who are really hungry. We can cook up to 400 pizzas a day at the restaurant. We have three big ovens that can hold six pizzas at a time and it takes ten minutes for the pizzas to bake,” he told the youngsters.

The preschoolers told him what their favorite toppings for pizza were and discussed the fact that pizzas are usually round, although one child pointed out that he had eaten a rectangle-shaped pizza. The children discussed that round pizzas were cut into triangle shapes when eaten. The children went on to ask Mr Tambascio what other kinds of foods he prepares at his restaurant.

Ms Cascone stated that the last remaining gingerbread man was brought in by Newtown police officers. She said that the children had tremendous fun hearing about the varied adventures of the gingerbread men that escaped and learned a great deal about community workers in their own town.