The Christmas season often brings much activity to the classroom.  Between the excitement and energy that enters the classroom with the students and the additional activities happening during the month of December, teachers often find themselves “managing” until the holiday break.

One fun way to enjoy the season while still completing some meaningful teaching is to embrace the time and use it to your advantage. Try some gingerbread fun with your students. Below I have included a few ideas that can easily be adapted to fit a variety of grade levels. Try to add some of your own flare! If you would like help expanding one of these idea, I would love to help(stacy@designcc.com).

I would love to hear how you used gingerbread houses in your classroom. Share your ideas and activities in the comments below.

Gingerbread Math

• Bring in a pre-made gingerbread house for students to measure, calculate surface area and/or volume.
• Allow students to measure the dimensions of the gingerbread house and then scale down or scale up the gingerbread dimensions.
• Using the volume of the house, have students reason out and problem solve how many small candy pieces (i.e. m and m’s) will be needed to fill the inside of the gingerbread house.
• For older students, you can increase the difficulty of the math; calculate angles, make a net for your house, use Pythagorean Theorem using the base and side measurements, and other geometrical concepts.
• Add a small Lego type character next to the house and have students determine the height of the character by comparing it to the house using ratios and proportions.

Gingerbread Writing

• With a pre-made gingerbread house to observe, have students create a creative writing piece sharing a story that might take place in that home.
• Using a gingerbread house kit (not made), have student groups write a descriptive piece sharing how they would build their gingerbread house. After writing, allow students to  attempt to build another group’s house based on their instructions.
• In group’s of 3 or 4, allow students to write a dialogue between people that live in this home. Think of unusual circumstance: the day it rained Gatorade, the day the abominable snowman came to visit, the day they decided to remodel.

Gingerbread Science

• Using a small gingerbread house, have students measure mass, determine volume and calculate density.
• With older students, research what makes a gingerbread house strong. Build and test different ideas.
• Give older students a engineering design type challenge with limitations that make the construction more difficult (i.e. the house must have a flat roof) and then test for weight bearing ability or shake test endurance.
• Research what makes a good “gingerbread glue”(frosting). Have students create and test a frosting recipe for strength.
• With older students, include gingerbread houses in an architectural unit allowing students to complete a full design process on this theme.
• As part of a nutritional unit, have students calculate calories, sugars, fats and other nutritional components in the gingerbread house. Compare this to other food sources.

Hopefully, these ideas will start your thinking to find a way to bring some gingerbread fun into your classroom. Any of these ideas may be combined to create your own unique way of using a house with your kids. Let us know the ways that you found to incorporate this in your classroom. Share those ideas below in the comments.