The Gingerbread House Project

For many years we have had an annual tradition of making little gingerbread houses out of graham crackers.  We also have enjoyed going to the Museum of Idaho to see the beautiful gingerbread houses on display there.  Every year we say, we should try to make a "real" gingerbread house, but have never actually tried it.  This year, during Thanksgiving break, I decided it would be a good project to tackle with the kids.

Ian and I looked up a pattern online, but then had to use math... yes MATH! to create a pattern to scale for what we could actually fit on our baking sheets and in our oven.  Ian LOVES to draw house plans and think through construction projects, so he was my man for the job.

After the math was done and the pattern pieces were drawn, we made our gingerbread, rolled it out, and cut out all of the pieces.

Next, it was time to assemble the pieces.  The kids were excited to use melted jolly ranchers for a stained glass window look.

Of course, we cheated a little with hot glue... shhhh... the kids were mad at me, but it sure made it easier to assemble and decorate.

We all had a hand in decorating the house!  And we were all so proud of our finished product.  The hardest part was keeping Charlotte from eating the house all through Christmas.

We definitely loved this project and the wheels are already starting to turn for our house next year!