Happy Holidays everyone!!!

I just had to share this with all you CCer's because you will understand.

My oldest son is 6, in the first grade and loves to design cakes and make cakes with me.

So I asked his teacher today if the class could make small gingerbread houses as gifts for their families. She said said she has never attemped it but if I wanted to I could. Sooo, I get a whole afternoon with the class to decorate their houses and make them gifts to send home!!!!

I am totally excited and love sharing our craft with kids! Just wanted to share my excitment with people who would understand!!!!

Happy Cakin'

Have lots and lots of fun

What fun! I miss those days so much... I'm glad to see you grabbing the moment before it passes.

You didn't ask for advice, but I can't help myself. I've had A LOT of experience with gingerbread houses and 6 year olds.

Please have the houses assembled and glued to their bases beforehand. We always used graham crackers. Make sure the bases are big enough for walkways, trees, snowmen and of course, abstract mosaics.

Put the childrens' names on the bases BEFORE they start decorating.

Dump all the candies in the center of the table and give each kid a small plate or bowl with wet royal icing that they can dip their decorations into for glue.

You and the other volunteers should walk around with piping bags full of royal to help glue on decos that have fallen off and refill the plates of 'glue'.

Have fun and take lots of pictures!

I'm doing the same thing with "my kids" (I'm a classroom supervisor for 5th and 6th graders), and there are 15 of them (i'm also the home-ec teacher) sooooooooooo I'm gonna bake them all and assemble them and bring a small piping bag of white royal for everyone and have about 4 other bags with red and green floating around for details they might want to add! I can't wait either.

Aww, have fun!

My kids have done them before using empty milk cartons (individual size) as a structure to glue the graham crackers to. My tip: ask for lots of extra helpers!

Thanks for all the advice everyone!!!! I am going to use graham crackers and hot glue them all together first. The teacher asked if I could at least pipe the royal icing on the corners and maybe a bit on the roofs, which isn't a problem. We are just gonna give the kids a bunch of candy and icing and let them go crazy!

I will take lots of pics and post them when we are done!

I was going to get gifts bags and tissue paper to package them, if anyone has a better idea, please share!!!!

Thanks

That sounds like such a great idea and lots of fun.
Please share any and all advice with me. I think I'd like to try this in my sons 1st grade class. So you use graham crackers for the house, RI as glue, candies to decorate. What do the kids take it home in?

I did this with my nieces and nephews one Christmas. We used graham crackers and white candy melts to put everything together. They were edible that way (just in case), and they set up quickly. Then we used royal for "gluing" the candy on, etc. So much fun!! My MIL lined the houses up as her table centerpiece.

SO much fun! Enjoy!

zoraya~
I am using graham crackers and am going to hot glue them together and then to small pieces of cake boards before hand, then I am going to cover up the hot glue with royal icing. At school the kids will get to use RI and candie to decorate. I think I also saw Peep christmas trees and snowman, so I am gonna get some of those too.

I was going to go looking for gift bags and tissue paper this weekend. If I can find some bags that are decent size, I will cut the cake boards to fit the bottom of the bags and then when the houses are dry we will put them in the bags with tissue paper around them. Then add a but of ribbong and a to/from card, send them home as gifts.

If you do this share your pics too!!!

This is so exciting. I though about volunteering to do this with my kids' classes. I know the gingerbread houses are really for decoration, but my kids insist on nibbling away at them. I figured if I volunteered, I could at least make sure that we used royal icing and not Elmer's glue like the teacher uses.

If you're using hot glue make SURE that the parents know about it so they don't try eating it.

I make houses at home with several kids every year. My boys help me decide who we're inviting and we decorate. I assemble the houses before they come over.

This year I ordered a house candy mold and we're making candy houses instead. I will probably let the kids help assemble them since candy sets up faster than icing.

I might be helping make icing in my kindergartener's room this year too. The teacher always does graham cracker houses using cannned icing. If she doesn't want my help I'm bringing my own icing, they use canned and that just doesn't work well.

Oh Have Fun!!! I did this with my son's class for 4 years during his elementary days. I bought EACH child their own gbread house from Michaels (I'm a WMI so I got the yearly 50% off entire purchase discount) so the houses were only $4.99 each and the parents paid me. Then I had a moms morning at my house with breakfast and we assembled all the houses (usually 24 of them) with the icing and let them dry overnight. Then the next morning I took them all to school and we all decorated them in class. The moms stayed and helped me. The teachers were SO EXCITED and the kids each got to take their own gbread house home for the holidays, what fun!!!!!

Enjoy! My kids are now 11 and 12 so I don't get to do this in middle school So enjoy every minute of it, the kids LOVE LOVE LOVE me too!! ha ha I always bring the goodies!!!

ginger

The kids will love it...I do it every year with 30 cub scouts. I give them each there own little bag of royal icng. I use my food saver to seal the piping bags....makes it so easy!

Definately pre-assemble the houses!

have fun!

not to bash the hot glued graham crackers or anything......but woudn't it be more fun sticking the candy and stuff on the houses if you actually got to eat the house when you were done??? I understand using inedibles for show pieces but not when you're having kids decorate......they love to eat and I personally (even as a kid mind you ) would have viewed it as wasting good candy putting it on something that couldn't be eaten.......I'd rather sit there and eat the candy then attach it to a house that wasn't safe to eat.

The main reason we are hot glueing the houses first is because most the kids in the class have to take them on the bus to get home. We are just trying to make sure they get home in one piece since they are the gift they are giving their parents. I am getting extra candy so they can snack on that.

We are making a note to send home saying its for decoration only because of the hot glue.

I think if you used candy melts and lots of them to assemble them and then put them into small bakery boxes they should be fine to sit on a bus on a child's lap and not break!