The Gingerbread Man - Preschool Storytime

I typically do a "Cookie" theme as an inclusive, holiday-adjacent storytime in December. However, in January a new staff member will be taking over the preschool storytime and really wanted to do a cookie theme as Laura Numeroff's If You Give a Mouse a Cookie is her favorite childhood book. So I decided to give mine a more narrow focus, and made it "Gingerbread Man" themed (or "Gingerbread People" if you prefer, but I unfortunately could not find more gender-inclusive gingerbread books that were short enough for preschoolers).

I greeted everyone and introduced the storytime by talking about how many people like to bake cookies this year, and even more people like to eat cookies this time of year! We discussed who had already done some holiday baking and favorite cookies, which led into our warm-up, an action rhyme that would allow us to pretend to make cookies:

Making Cookies

We are making cookie dough;
Round and round the beaters go.
Add some flour, just two cups.
Stir and mix the batter up.

Roll them, cut them, nice and neat.
Put them on a cookie sheet.
Bake them, cool them on a rack.
Share them with my friends for snack!

Then we sang our lead-in song, "If You're Ready for a Story", prior to our first story. I began with a traditional telling of the classic Gingerbread Man story, which I found in a collection of classic folktales by Usborne unfortunately entitled Stories for Little Boys. Despite the completely unnecessarily gendered and sexist title, it is otherwise a nice collection of classic folktales that are not too text-heavy or dark, as so many are. (It also includes Pinocchio, Under the Ground, In the Castle, and The Emperor's New Clothes.) 

Since most children aren't familiar with the classic folktales, I like to incorporate them when I can for cultural literacy, and to provide context for the contemporary retellings that often have a humorous twist.

Next, we did a counting-down rhyme, with clipart images of gingerbread people on the magnetic board (I had intended to make nice felt ones, but ran out of time):

Five Little Gingerbread Men

Five little gingerbread men in a row,
Not gonna eat one no, no, no!
But they look so sweet from head to toe
Crunch, munch...uh oh!

Continue until...

No little gingerbread men in a row;
Wasn't gonna eat one, no, no, no.
But they looked so sweet that it's sad to tell
Crunch, munch... oh well!

I followed that with reading How to Catch a Gingerbread Man by Adam Wallace and Andy Elkerton. There are numerous titles in the How to Catch... series, and while I have found this series to be somewhat hit and miss, this was definitely one of the better books of the series. 

The story is set in a bookstore storytime, where they are reading the classic Gingerbread Man story when the Gingerbread Man leaps out of the book and runs away, with the children in quick pursuit. They try various traps in an attempt to capture the Gingerbread Man, but with the help of several other classic storybook characters he always manages to escape. In the end, he decides to return to his story on his own. I loved the way the book featured a storytime setting, and tied in several other classic stories. Though preschoolers may not recognize them all, the adults will appreciate them.

I followed that with another "Five Little Gingerbread Men" rhyme, instead of the song I had originally planned, due to the small size and low energy of the group.

Five Little Gingerbread Men

Five Little Gingerbread men lying on a tray,
One jumped up and ran away,
Shouting, "Catch me, catch me, catch me if you can...
I'm really fast, I'm a gingerbread man!"

Four Little Gingerbread men... (Count down the numbers repeating the stanza above...)

No more gingerbread men lying on a tray,
They all jumped up and ran away.
I guess I'll have to make more another day,
and next time I'll eat them before they run away.

I skipped the usual "Good-bye" song, and sent the kids to wash their hands (we have a preschool restroom attached to the program room) while I put out the craft and some mini-gingerbread men cookies I happened to find at the grocery store a few days earlier. 

In the past I've gotten the regular Pepperidge Farm Gingermen and given them icing to decorate with, but after discovering most kids don't like them, I decided against it this time. But then by chance I found small packages of mini-Gingerman on sale, and thought that would be perfect; since they were smaller, there would be less waste if kids took one taste and didn't want them. However, these were sweeter and less spicy than the regular Gingermen, and the kids enjoyed them.

For the craft, I had gingerbread houses with stickers to decorate with that I had found in my office when I first started working here, something I presume my predecessor had planned before deciding to retire. I'm not sure where she got them, but similar ones can be purchased from Oriental Trading and Amazon.

While they were enjoying their gingerbread men cookies and working on the craft, I decided to read a third book, The Ninjabread Man  by C. J. Leigh and Chris Gall, because I think it's really cute, I knew at least one of the kids would really appreciate it, and it was just too quiet (a very rare occurrence!). As the name suggests, this is a clever re-telling of the gingerbread man story set in a dojo, with the old sensei making a magical ninjabread man, who runs off to test the speed, strength, and wisdom of the ninjas in training.

How It Went 
It was a bit of an off day. I was looking forward to this storytime, which would be my last preschool storytime as my assistant will be taking over in January to free up some of my time for other things, but at the time it was supposed to start, there was no a single soul in the children's department. I waited 10 minutes, then gave up and went back to my office to work. A couple of minutes later, one of the circ staff came back and said there were a couple of families, chronic latecomers, asking about storytime.

Normally at that point I would've just said, sorry, no one was here so storytime was cancelled, but since I really wanted to do this last storytime, and had dressed for the theme (see below), I told them I would do an abbreviated storytime since it was so late. Since it was just three kids, I skipped over some of the usual intro and warm-up. It worked out, and the kids enjoyed it. I overheard one later telling a friend who arrived at the library later all about it and telling him he should have come. I don't know why, but we really struggle with attendance for the preschool storytime, while the toddler storytime consistently has 12-15 kids, and sometimes as many as 20-25.

I decided to be extra festive, and instead of my usual "Oh, snap!" gingerbread man t-shirt, I went all out and wore a gingerbread woman dress I bought on clearance after the holidays several years ago, which I also wore later that evening to promote the library at the local preschool's "Festival of Trees" where each classroom decorates a tree based on a different picture book. In keeping with the theme of the festival, I decorated a small tree on my table with gingerbread people and animals.

Mini 'Gingerbread' House STEAM Program - 2022

 

Back in 2019 I had the opportunity to do something I'd always wanted to do - a mini 'gingerbread' house program inspired by the graham cracker 'gingerbread' houses I used to make with my daughter. I eschewed what apparently has become common practice of pre-assembling the houses or using cartons/boxes to build them on in favor of an open-ended STEAM approach, allowing kids to fully express their creativity and empowering them to use their engineering and problem-solving skills. It turned out to be a huge success, and I was really looking forward to making it an annual program.

But we all know what happened next: the pandemic hit, libraries shut down, then re-opened without in-person programming for the remainder of 2020 and much of 2021. During that time I changed libraries twice; first due to pandemic lay-offs, then to find a better fit. So by the time the pandemic had eased up enough to allow in-person programs and for me to be comfortable with anything food-based, I found myself in a library and community much different from the one were I did my first gingerbread house program. I have observed that people here and now seem to have a harder time following instructions and figuring things out, so I wasn't comfortable with diving in with a huge program like I did before. I decided to quietly do a small-scale program for one specific age group as a test run this year, and see how it went.

Most of the kids who had attended previously were in the 5-10 age range, which was perfect since I have a regular monthly program for that age I call "Kids Club", with different activities each month. I hinted at what we would be doing with terms like "holiday building challenge" and "confectionary architecture" in the description, but did not come right out and say gingerbread houses, nor did I include any images other than our generic "Kids Club" logo. I knew if I included images and publicized it, I would be overrun with people of all ages. I did everything pretty much the same as previously.

Materials & Supplies: 

• 8" cardboard cake circles, preferable coated to be be greaseproof (the ones I bought from the same vendor as previously were advertised as coated, but this time what I received was plain, uncoated cardboard)
• aluminum foil (only if you cannot get coated cardboard circles)
• 10" disposable piping bags (I bought in bulk from Amazon)
• rubber bands
• store-brand graham crackers (at least one box for every 5 participants, plus at least one extra for breakage)
• small (10 oz) cans of frosting (1 for every family, available at DollarTree or Wal-Mart)*
• large (16 oz) cans of frosting (1 for every 3 participants), these are to fill piping bags*
• small candies for decorating (mini candy canes, mini M&Ms, Smarties, gum/spice drops, starlight mints, etc)
• other optional additions: teddy grahams, mini pretzel twists (really small ones) or sticks
• paper plates
• serrated plastic knives
• small bowls/cups to put candies in
• spoons/tongs for candy dishes
• scissors

Prep: 

1. My co-worker set out the following at each of 10 seats: paper plate, cardboard circle, piece of aluminum foil, plastic knife, and 4 graham cracker sheets. 
2. While they were doing that, I snipped the ends of 10 piping bags and filled each with 1/3 of a large can of icing, twisted, and handed off to co-worker to rubber-band then placed one at each place (see note about icing at the bottom)
3. Put the various candies out in bowls with tongs or spoons.

Program: 

1. As participants entered, I instructed them to first wash their hands, then went over basic safe food handling rules that we had to follow since we were doing a food-based activity in a group environment and sharing supplies:
1. Wash hands
2. Keep hands out of mouths & noses and away from faces
3. No eating until the end of the program
4. No licking fingers or knives
2. I was going to show the PowerPoint with basic instructions and tips that I had made before, but discovered our laptop had been stolen, so I just demonstrated and went over them. The key thing is to *saw* the crackers with the knife using very little pressure, not cut, and spread a thick base layer of icing on the cardboard circle (first covered with foil if using uncoated cardboard), to within 1/2" of the edge (leave a clean edge for carrying). I showed them how to build my basic example, but encouraged them to be creative and do their own thing.
   
   
   
   
   
3. I then passed out one of the small cans of icing to each family. This is primarily to use for the base layer of icing and for extra icing for the piping bags if needed. This proved to be too much icing for most, so next time I'll probably just buy all larger cans and dispense globs in dixie cups to each person (I would prefer to buy bulk icing, but it's actually a lot more expensive).
4. I then gave them the final, and most important tip of all: To remember the point is to have fun, not make a perfect house! So don't worry if your house is crooked, cracked, or lopsided. Most mistakes can be hidden with icing and candy, and there are no building codes in gingerbread land! And if it crashes, you can eat it.
5. Then I put on some Nutcracker music with a fireplace video on in the background, and let them have at it!
   
   
   
   
   

How It Went: 

I ended up with a total of 12 kids from ages 5-10, plus adults, which was the perfect size for a good test-run, and though I was a little nervous, it went just as well as at my previous library before the pandemic. This just further proves that kids do NOT need to have everything done for them, they have a much better experience when allowed to do and figure things out for themselves, and this approach allows for much more creativity, as seen below. No two houses looked at all alike.

Some of the younger kids needed some assistance from their grown-ups, but not too much, and I saw no signs of frustration at all, just happy faces proud of their creations. They may not have been the most perfect, sturdy, nicely decorated houses, but that's okay. In fact, it's more than okay, because it shows that they did them themselves, and were empowered to figure things out and be creative, giving them a much greater sense of accomplishment than a perfect, preassembled house that looks pretty much like everyone else's.

I'll also add that my co-worker who does the teen programming had coincidentally decided to do this same program with the teens, so I helped a little with that one as well, and the younger kids definitely took it more seriously and had better results. The teens, all middle-schoolers, just wanted to eat a pile of crackers, icing, and candy. But they still had fun!

Since it went so well, I think I'll try a big, family program mini-gingerbread house in December and a haunted gingerbread house program for the teens in October next year.

*A note about icing/frosting - Though royal icing (made with powdered sugar and fresh or powdered egg whites) is the traditional icing used to glue a gingerbread house together and decorate, it is difficult to work with, especially for kids/beginners. It is tricky to get the right consistency, and is actually pretty weak at holding parts together until it is dry. But it will last for a very, very long time without discoloring. If you are doing a fancy gingerbread house that will takes weeks to finish and be on display for a long time, then you would want to use royal.

But if you are doing a fun, simple project like this with kids that will be completed in a day and possibly actually eaten, canned icing or a version of American 'Buttercream' (made with powdered sugar, shortening, and a little powdered egg white added) works much better because it has a thick consistency that will hold the crackers in place easily if a thick enough base layer is used. This icing will discolor eventually, but will easily last for a month or two. My original examples (pictured at the very top) held up for a year or more before being discarded due to dust and discoloration.

Mini 'Gingerbread' Houses II - Family STEAM Program

I did everything for the second round of building mini "gingerbread" houses pretty much the same as I did the first time, except that I raised the registration limit from 30 to 36. Since the first one went so smoothly I realized that I could easily accommodate that many, and since we always have no-shows I figured I needed to up it to 36 to get 30 anyway.

I've already written up all the details about materials needed, budget, etc., in my prior post, "Mini Gingerbread Houses", so I'll just quickly summarize here. Each session required about $75 in supplies for 30 houses, using graham crackers and canned icing. No pre-assembly was done, the only "glue" used was canned icing (no royal icing required, and most definitely no hot glue 😖), and no milk cartons or boxes). Participants were given brief instructions, tips for construction, and shown a few examples, then had the rest of the hour to free-build and decorate their houses.

While this session did go very well, there were some distinct differences from the first session. First of all, I ran into a LOT more broken graham crackers; in the first session I had maybe 2 crackers that were broken in the box, but there were at least 20 broken ones in the second session! I have no idea why, as they were the same brand, purchased from the same store at the same time, and stored in the same place. It was very frustrating and cost me several minutes of set-up time, but thankfully I had purchased an excess of crackers in case this happened. 

I also noticed the demographics of the crowd was quite a bit different from the first. In the first session I had mostly moms with younger kids in the 3-8 age range, but in the second I saw more older kids and teenagers, including two teens who came together rather than with family, a family who brought a couple of adult friends with them, and a mom that came by herself. So clearly this is an activity that appeals to all ages.

And finally, I noticed that in the second group I observed more people making up their own designs rather than building the typical square or rectangular house with a gabled roof. I saw one that looked something like a cross between art deco and Chichen Itza, one that resembled a pagoda, and one that reminded me of a house of cards, plus several with flat roofs.

Everyone seemed to have a great time, and I didn't notice anyone getting frustrated. I got lots of compliments and "thank you"s, and some expressing the hope that we do it again next year (and I certainly hope to).

So, long story short:

• Get plenty of extra graham crackers in case of breakage.
• Royal icing is NOT necessary (or recommended).
• Gingerbread house building can be a STEAM activity
• Pre-assembly and milk carton bases are unnecessary, and deprive participants of the opportunity to use their imagination, creativity, engineering, and problem-solving skills.
• All ages enjoy making gingerbread houses, making it a perfect multi-generational program.
• Must-have candies for decorating are mini candy canes, gum drops, starlight mints, and small candies like mini M&M's and/or Smarties. Cinnamon candies were not popular.

Mini 'Gingerbread' Houses - Family STEM Program

Yes, building gingerbread houses can be a STEM program! It all depends on how you do it.

This is a program I have been wanting to do every since I started working at the library, and this year I was finally in a position where I could. I first started doing these mini-houses made from graham crackers with my daughter, so she could have her own to do while I worked on mine that I wanted to be "just so", or worked on creations for clients (this was back during my days as a semi-professional confectionery artist). 

Since I was doing this program as an expanded version of my monthly elementary STEM program, I was adamant about retaining as much creativity, engineering, and problem-solving as possible. That meant no pre-assembly, no pre-cutting, no forms or templates (i.e. milk cartons), and no dividing the candy up into exactly identical, individual portions. I wanted to encourage creativity, not cookie-cutter houses that all looked similar, and I had confidence in my participants' construction skills (with parental assistance). I also had enough experience making gingerbread houses to know it's really not as difficult as many fear, with the right materials.

Of course, I had to dress appropriately for the occasion:

Ages: This was advertised as an all-ages family program, but most participants were between the ages of 3 and 10, plus all the adults.

Time: 1 hour (plus 2-hours for set-up and 1 hour clean-up)

Number: 30 participants (registration was required & limited due to room size)

Budget: Approximately $75 (buying store brands on sale)

Materials:

• 7 boxes graham crackers
• 15-16 cans vanilla icing
• 30+ disposable piping bags
• 30+ rubber bands
• 30+ 8" coated cake boards (if you use regular cardboard, you must cover with foil)
• 30+ plastic knives
• 30+ paper plates
• short, wide plastic cups and/or bowls for putting candies and other decorations in
• plastic spoons and/or tongs
• assorted candies and other decorations
  I provided: mini candy canes, gumdrops, starlight mints, assorted other hard candies, cinnamon imperials (red-hots), mini M&Ms, Smarties, Teddy Grahams, and mini-twist pretzels. 

Prep:

1. I put together a short Power Point with basic instructions and tips with photos to go over at the beginning. Then I also made a slide show of assorted pictures of gingerbread houses, mostly mini-graham cracker houses, but also a few amazing gingerbread structures, like the Capitol building, a castle, St. Basil's cathedral, and of course, Hogwarts, to just have running on a continuous loop throughout the program for inspiration.

2. I pre-filled 30 piping bags with icing, cutting the tip off to make an appropriate opening and twisting and rubber banding the top closed (this makes it much easier for novices and

kids; I have found using zip-lock bags instead of pastry bags does not work as they rupture way too easily). (This took an hour alone, and was the most labor-intensive part.)

3. I had 6 tables set up with 5 places each, and at each place I set out a cake board, paper plate, plastic knife, filled piping bag, and 5 graham cracker sheets (4 sheets is enough for a basic house). Then I added 3 cans of icing (that were about half full after filling the piping bags) per table [to save time and not have to divide it up further, I figured families could share], and paper towels.

4. As a compromise between being sure everyone had enough of each candy and allowing creativity and individual variation (plus saving time), I divided each candy/decoration into six portions in cups or bowls and placed one of each on each table, rather than dividing into individual portions or putting it in one big buffet up front. For anything that was not individually wrapped, I included a spoon or tongs.

5. I put extra supplies on a table up front in case we had extra participants, people wanted to try to build a slightly bigger house, or needed more icing or crackers.

The Program:

1. I asked everyone to come in and have a seat, but to please not touch anything until everyone was settled and I had given them some instructions and tips.

2. The first thing I went over was practicing safe food handling since we were working in a group and sharing supplies. That meant no eating of the supplies during the program (plus we wanted to be sure there was enough of everything), no licking icing off the knives, and no licking of fingers. [I know it is not realistic to expect complete compliance, as the temptation is very strong, but it's never too early to learn proper kitchen hygiene and food handling].

3. Then I showed them a few samples of different houses and the basic process of construction: spread a thick layer of icing in the center of the cake board, pipe or spread icing along all the edges of the pieces to act as glue, press them together gently. 

4. One important tip is to use a gentle sawing motion with very little pressure when cutting the crackers to the shapes/sizes needed to avoid breakage! And just in general, to use a light touch when adding pieces or decorations to your house. After it's assembled, you can pipe a zig-zag over all the seams and raw edges to make it look more "finished".

5. And the biggest tip of all is to remember the point is to have fun, not make a perfect house! So don't worry if your house is crooked, cracked, or lopsided. Most mistakes can be hidden with icing and candy, and there are no building codes in gingerbread land!

How It Went

I admit I was a bit nervous, hoping I had not overestimated my participants' construction skills and patience, as this was the first time I had done this activity with a large group. But, it went so well!

I was absolutely amazed at how well everyone did! I was expecting to be run ragged, going back and forth helping frustrated children, but out of 27 kids there was really only one that had problems and got visibly frustrated. Most families worked really well together, with parents provided assistance and advice when needed. Some of the older kids worked pretty much independently, and as expected, the younger kids needed a bit more help. And as also expected, there are always a few parents that help perhaps a bit too much, but everyone was having a good time.

While most did follow the basic square house with a gabled roof like my example, some did build slightly larger, rectangular houses, other added creative additions and accessories, such as chimneys, Santa in the chimney, Santa's sleigh on the roof (creatively using candy canes for sleigh runners), trees, light posts, pathways, and dog houses. While all the houses were adorable, one child was particularly creative with his design, building a Frank Lloyd Wright-esque house, complete with a table set with candy plates on the upper terrace.

Everyone had a great time, and were very proud of their creations. There were lots of smiling faces and many compliments and thank you's, and since my assistance was not needed nearly as much as I had expected, I was able to spend more time chatting with families and admiring their houses. There were so many great houses I put all the pictures in slideshow so I could show them all:

And I get to do it all again on the 20th! Since I knew there would be a lot of interest, but the size of our room makes it necessary to cap it at 30, I offered two sessions for twice the fun!

Take Home Message

You can do a gingerbread house program without pre-assembling and doing everything for them! Free-building encourages creativity, problem-solving skills, patience, and a greater sense of accomplishment. In addition, using a piping bag increases hand strength and picking up and placing candy decorations uses fine-motor skills, both of which contribute to writing skills.

I've followed several different discussions about gingerbread house programs over the last few years, and I'll be honest, I was surprised at how many said they pre-assemble everything so all the kids have to do is stick their individually-portioned candy on them, some even saying they use hot glue (yikes, never a good idea to mix inedible with edible, especially when working with children). I'm sure people have their reasons for doing it this way, and perhaps have different goals that I do, but after having done a free-build family program, I wouldn't do it any other way.

Also, a note about icing. While royal icing is the traditional icing used for gingerbread houses, it is a PAIN to work with, especially for kids, and it completely unnecessary. Regular buttercream icing or store-bought icing in a can is so much easier to work with. It is thicker and stickier, and provides more support and holding power without having to wait for it to set. True, it does not dry quite as hard as royal icing, but it will easily last for a month. Royal icing is necessary for the big elaborate gingerbread masterpieces because they are so large, take weeks or even months to construct, and are meant to be kept on display indefinitely.