Gingerbread House Activities
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Christmas is my favorite holiday of the year, and while it's one of the busiest times, it's also a time when I make extra time for the kids to make memories. One of my favorite traditions is baking gingerbread cookies and houses, decorating them and giving them to friends and our kids teachers. We always have at least one gingerbread house that we keep and then break and eat after Christmas dinner.
A few years ago I got a miniature house form and since then all the kids got to make individual miniature houses, and there is no fighting how to decorate them and who gets to eat what. LOL
We also started a new tradition about 8 years ago with inviting the kids friends over each year for a cookie decorating party. We all look forwards to that each December and its a great way to make memories with friends, and create a sense of community. The below image are some of the gems from last week.
With all the baking and cookie making, I usually end up having to make at least three batches of cookie dough in December. If you've ever wanted to bake/taste Scandinavian gingerbread cookies before, I'll share my recipe at the end.
With cookies on my mind, I made two holiday craft videos and a printable gingerbread house activity for you to enjoy.
Kids Magic Frosted Gingerbread House
This is a fun, no-mess gingerbread house drawing activity for kids. We did this with my 6 year old and she loved it and continued to draw gingerbread houses for our friends.
You just need two crayons, a pencil and an object to scrape with (ex a fork or a coin).
See the video tutorial here.
Gingerbread Gift Tag Craft-along
In this slower paced tutorial, grab your hot cocoa and learn about different designs you can draw on gingerbread houses, and then follow along and draw two different kinds of houses with me to create cute little gift tags. (You can also use the designs to decorate a real gingerbread house.)
This activity is fun for all ages. Do it with kids, or with friends. (If using acrylic markers, make sure to supervise younger helpers.)
Tip: You could also draw on a long strip of cardboard and create an accordion folded little row of houses for your table. Click here to go to tutorial.
K-1st Gingerbread House Activity
To have non-religious themed holiday activities for classrooms, I’ve created a gingerbread house activity page set for kindergarten and first grade students. The activity includes a gingerbread house and a gingerbread man to color and decorate, and two extra pages for an incorporated math or writing exercise.
You can see the pages below and download them all in a neat PDF here.
Scandinavian Gingerbread Recipe
This is a recipe that I have saved ages ago, and tweaked to my liking. I use it every year when baking cookies and hope you’ll enjoy the smell of gingerbread cookies wafting through your house too. For best results, I recommend letting the dough sit in a cool place overnight. Heating the spices and then letting them permeate the dough for a few hours really brings the flavor and smell to a new level.
Recipe:
Makes about 3-4 dozen cookies depending on the size of your cookie forms. Bake at 200C/400F for about 5-7 min
1 1/2 dl (0.6 Cups) Cane Syrup (You could substitute brown sugar, or partial maple syrup in a pinch, but I’ve never used all maple syrup and don’t know how that would work)
2 dl (0.8 Cups ) regular white sugar
200g butter (which is about 1 3/4 sticks of butter)
1 tsp powdered ginger
1/2 tsp powdered cloves
2 tsp cinnamon
(optional 1 tsp ground cardamon)
2 eggs
8dl (3.4 Cups) flour
1tsp baking soda - mix into flour
Directions:
Put the sugars, butter and spices in a pot, and stir over medium heat until boiling (You just need to see one bubble form), remove from stove and let cool almost completely (I put mine in the cold garage to cool), then add eggs and flour mixture.
After you mix it all up and the dough is smooth, refrigerate it. Let it sit overnight, or at least a few hours for best flavors. If you live in a cold climate, you can leave it covered in the garage overnight.
To bake, add a bit of flour to your baking surface, and carve out a lump of dough from the bowl. You might need to knead it a bit with your hands to get it to flatten out. Then roll it out with a rolling pin to under 1/8" thickness. (Thinner than sugar cookies.) Cut out shapes, and if they get stuck to your surface a bit, I use a butter knife to help pick the cookies up and place on a baking sheet. Bake at 200C/400F for about 5-7 min. Adjust time/temperature with how your oven bakes. When the cookies have just a hint of darker color starting to form on edges, or are looking solid, they are done. I let mine cool on a tea towel on the counter because they are pretty fast to bake and I rotate between two baking pans.
Frosting
For the frosting, I mix a bit of powdered sugar with water. For about every 3/4" sugar, I add a teaspoon of meringue powder, which helps the frosting set up faster. Mix water in a teaspoon at a time until desired consistency. With the kids I pour the frosting in ziploc bags, cut one corner off, and let them pipe with that.
And that is it! it was fun to create a gingerbread house themed and share our Christmas traditions with you. Feel free to share and save the post with friends.
