Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Ceramic Gingerbread Man Spoon Rest

Hopefully, all of our little gingerbread men made it home in one piece!  The kids had a fabulous time making this project for you.  It was a great first-time ceramic experience for our classroom.  We are lucky enough to have a kiln at our school and we do 2 or 3 projects each year.  This little spoon rest was project #1.


We started by drawing a gingerbread man, using a tracer.  Then I asked kids to draw a face, icing, buttons, etc.  This was a good practice, just to get the kids thinking about what a gingerbread man looks like, his characteristics, and how they want their gingerbread guy to look.



After rolling, cutting, and drawing features onto clay, we dried and fired the gingerbread men.  Then came the glazing.




Kids painted their features and then we fired them again.


Our frosted gingerbread men turned out so cute!  I hope you like them as much as we do.


Happy Winter Break!

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

A Sneak Peak

Here's a sneak peak at a few projects that will be coming home tomorrow.





Shhhh.  It's a secret.  We won't tell!

Tasty Gingerbread Men

Run, run, as fast as you can....

We can't get away from the gingerbread man!


Last week we baked gingerbread cookies.  The kids rolled the dough, cut the cookies, and we popped them into the oven.  Don't worry we didn't peek!  The kids knew, from reading the story, that if we had opened the oven door he would have jumped right out!  


We made our gingerbread men out of sugar cookie dough and gingerbread dough, since some kids don't like the strong flavor of gingerbread.  We frosted our little guys, and then sprinkled them up.  


Many kids talked about their experiences, baking with family at home.  I love that you are taking the time to be in the kitchen with your kids.  It's always a bit messier when kids help, but the experiences you provide at home directly relate to kids' literacy development.  We have been reading and writing about gingerbread men and baking for weeks, and kids are constantly relating their experiences to the books we have read in class!

Happy baking!