Make These Charming Gingerbread Houses from Paper Bags

One holiday tradition that I still do with my teenage daughter, even though we’ve never had a lot of holiday traditions, is decorating a gingerbread house. We use a kit rather than making gingerbread from scratch, and sometimes have a friend over to decorate with us. It’s always a lot of fun and then we keep the house on display for a few weeks as part of our holiday decor.

If you want to do gingerbread houses without the mess, or you’re looking for a holiday classroom craft that doesn’t involve food, these gingerbread houses made from paper bags are a great option.

This comes from The Best Ideas for Kids, and the post includes printables (free when you enter your email) that kids can color, cut out and add to the bag to make a gingerbread house all their own.

Of course you could also start kids off with basic shapes like circles, squares and rectangles and have them draw their own windows, doors and roofs if you want.

The printables also include things like giant lollipops and candy canes as well as smaller candies and Christmas trees that can be used to decorate the houses. There are three options for windows, doors and roof lines that you can mix up to make a bunch of different houses.

This would be a fun activity to do in the classroom and see how different kids decorate their gingerbread houses (and they’re a great decoration for the classroom, too). Or you can make them at home and use them for decoration on the holiday table or elsewhere.

Head to The Best Ideas for Kids to grab the printables and make this easy holiday craft for kids today.

Do you like to decorate gingerbread houses or is this paper version more your speed? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

[Photo: The Best Ideas for Kids] Check out the kids craft section on Craftbits.com

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Teach the Teacher Printable Worksheets: A Fun…

My daughter is 16 and one of her favorite things to do on school breaks is watch The Great British Bake Off. It’s such a soothing show, as well as being creative and fun, and it’s low stakes enough that it isn’t stressful, which is just the thing you need when you’re on a break from school.

If you don’t have an oven or want to do your own real Bake Off challenges, this baking show inspired drawing challenge from Frugal Fun for Boys and Girls is a great alternative. This works best if you have a group of kids to play, but you could also do it along with a child at home.

The post includes a bunch of different “baking” challenges for kids to draw. As an example: “Draw a dozen delicious doughnuts! Be sure to include at least two different flavors of icing. Challenge yourself to think of as many creative toppings as you can.”

Give them a set amount of time (maybe 10-15 minutes) to draw their creations based on the prompt. Then have each child present their creation, explaining what they chose to draw and why (and what the different flavors are if it’s not obvious).

There doesn’t have to be a winner, but kids can vote on their favorites or you can “award” things like most colorful, tallest creation, etc. Sarah suggests if doing this with little kids you can come up with an award for everyone, but there need not be prizes involved.

With older kids you might do a couple of rounds and pick winners so that you can have a “star baker” just like in the show.

This is a game that would be a lot of fun for kids of different ages, and you can do it multiple times with the different prompts.

Get all the details and the challenge cards from Frugal Fun for Boys and Girls.

[Photo: Frugal Fun for Boys and Girls]

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