Do you decorate gingerbread houses with the family around Christmas?
We do on occasion, but it’s not a set tradition for us. I’ve noticed that our gingerbread house decorating tends to take an unconventional turn.
Here’s a favorite story about how our decorating turned into a mystery-solving gingerbread small world play. It’s something we still talk about!
Once upon a time, Engineer (my son), Snoopy (Engineer’s best bud), and Little Hurricane (Snoopy’s younger brother) were hanging out at my house near Christmas.
We had a handy-dandy gingerbread house decorating kit that we decided to break open.
The boys did an amazing job working together to decorate the house. They managed to only eat about half the decorations in the process, too! That’s a feat, in and of itself!
As we were nearing the end of the decorating process, our gingerbread house took a turn!
One of the older boys excitedly exclaimed, “Hey, that looks like blood coming out of the window!” We took a video of it to document our concern.
My reply of, “Ohhhhh, better bring in the crime scene investigators!” led to the boys rummaging through our LEGO bin looking for the appropriate mini-figures.
I cracked up when they brought one with shiny sunglasses on!
The boys then spent quite some time “investigating” the suspicious substance and acting out several scenarios with various mini-figures.
Being the person that I am, I totally got into it with the boys! I asked silly questions and helped find Lego characters for their play. It was such fun observing their play and listening to the random crimes they came up with.
A friend jokingly commented that we needed crime scene tape, which led to us rummaging around and finding yellow ribbon.
Under the careful eyes of the boys, I wrote “Police Line! Do Not Cross!” The boys helped me attach the ribbon with some icing, and the scene was complete.
For about a week, our crime scene gingerbread house was played with, rearranged, and visited by all kinds of Lego characters. I lost count of the different scenarios the crime fighters came up with, but they were all rather imaginative!
While this might not be everyone’s cup of tea, it was oh so fun for the kiddos! I loved that it was entirely led by the kiddos, and they let me in on the play too.
Definitely an unconventional gingerbread house, but it has left us with a wonderful memory – and Engineer still talks about it.
What kind of gingerbread houses have your kids made? Any a little off-the-wall like ours?
Preschool Gingerbread Lesson Plans
Save time and get right to the learning fun with our printable lesson plan sets. Each set includes over 30 playful learning activities related to the theme, book suggestions, and activity explanations. We’ve provided different versions for home preschool families and classroom teachers so all activities are geared directly toward your needs.
This set also includes the following related printables:
- Character Puppets (in color and b/w)
- Gingerbread Color Sorting Mats and Object Cards
- Uppercase and Lowercase Letter Matching Colors (in color and b/w)
- Gingerbread House Measurement and Size Sorting Cards
- Gingerbread Man Number Cards (in color and b/w)
- Ten-Frame Mats 1-10 (in color and b/w)
- Gingerbread Man Pattern Prompt Task Cards
- Gingerbread Man Rhyming Sort
- Ending Sound Matching Puzzles
- Roll and Graph Game
- Gingerbread Man Water Science Experiment Recording Sheet (in color and b/w)
- Cookie Recording Sheet (in color and b/w)
- Decorate a Gingerbread House Counting Mats for Numbers 1-10 and one blank version in color and b/w
- Gingerbread Five Senses Recording Sheet (in color and b/w)
Get your lesson plans here:
Preschool Classroom Gingerbread Man Lesson Plans
Home Preschool Gingerbread Man Lesson Plans
You can also find us on Teachers Pay Teachers
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