Isn’t Christmas so fun?! One of our favorite holiday activities is making little gingerbread houses out of graham crackers.
Last Christmas, I helped A LOT of kids make candy-covered cottages. We made twenty in my son’s kindergarten class, thirty in my other son’s third grade class, and five at home. –So I am feeling like a real pro. Here’s what to do:
Collect empty milk cartons at school lunch. Rinse the cartons and leave right-side-up and open so they can dry. Once dry, close the cartons and staple the top so they will stay closed.
Collect lots of sugary decorations and lay them out on plates. Some ideas for decorations include cereal, cookies, licorice, sprinkles, pretzels, gumdrops, candy canes, kisses, gingerbread men cookies, M&Ms, Smarties, jellybeans, coconut, chocolate chips, and gummy bears. At school, we sent a note home with the students to ask parents to donate candy and decorating supplies.
Prepare Royal Icing. You’ll need to double/triple+ recipe if you are making many houses. I have found one recipe will make about five houses. I used 4 lbs of powdered sugar for 20 students and 6 lbs for 30 students when we made the houses at school.
Recipe for Royal Icing
1 lb. powdered sugar
1 tsp. lemon juice or vanilla
2 egg whites
Put the egg whites in a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer until frothy. Stir in lemon juice. Add sugar. Beat with mixer until thoroughly mixed. The icing should be very thick but thin enough to push through a small decorating tip.
Scoop the icing into quart size Ziploc bags– two large scoops per bag. When you are ready to work on the houses, snip a corner off the bag, then push the icing toward that corner to pipe out.
Before the kids begin, give each child two small paper plates, 6 graham cracker squares, and a milk carton. One paper plate will be used as the base for the house. The other will be used to carry candy and other sugary decorations from one location to another. –At home we didn’t need two plates because the candy was on the same table as the children. At school, we had a table with all the treats and the students worked at their individual desks/tables.
Explain to the kids that you and the other adults will be the “gluers”. Divide your group into manageable sections– 4-8 kids per adult. The kids should raise their hands whenever they need more icing. The adults roam around the room, piping out icing as needed, and complimenting the little engineers with great enthusiasm.
Happy building and Merry Christmas!
