Anyway, that also means I only have 7 days left to get in all of the fun Christmas activities I want to do. YIPES! Our class has been working on a Jan Brett author study since we returned from Thanksgiving break, and you sure can’t do that without reading her stories, The Gingerbread Baby and The Gingerbread Friends. We made our gingerbread boy/girl ornaments out of cinnamon and applesauce, but I forgot to take pictures of that. Oh, how wonderful our classroom smelled! Another great activity we did was to make a gingerbread house. This was the first time I had done this with my 1st graders, but it turned out awesome! I got the idea from Deanna Jump’s TpT store. In her packet she includes directions for how to make the gingerbread houses, complete with a list of materials needed and pictures, and a note home to parents asking for help with the supplies. Best thing about it? IT’S FREE!!!!! I love free stuff. Especially when it’s awesome! Here’s a link:Deanna Jump's Make a Gingerbread House
I started out by having my kiddos save their milk cartons from the cafeteria. I opened them, rinsed them out, and let them air dry. When they were dry I pulled out my trusty hot glue gun and glued them to decorative Christmas-themed plates. I also glued the tops of the milk cartons closed again.
Next, I hot glued the graham crackers to the milk cartons. You can break each graham cracker sheet into halves for the sides and into fourths for the ‘roof’.
After the first couple I figured out that I could make the graham cracker stick out a little on one side and the next graham cracker would fit up against it without having much of a gap.
When I had all of the houses ready, I gave each student a popcicle stick and a big scoop of vanilla icing. The kids used the popcicle sticks to spread the icing all over the milk carton.
It takes a lot of icing to do this! I had 4 canisters of vanilla icing for 22 kids, and I could easily have used 6. It takes a lot to fill in all of the cracks and cover the graham crackers.
After everyone had covered their houses with frosting, they got to choose from a variety of candies to decorate their houses. We had peppermint candies, mini candy canes, Red Hots, spice drops, and M&Ms. These are a few of the finished products.
I hope you all have a Merry Christmas!!!!!
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