As the smell of gingerbread fills the air, the Christmas season nears. Fifth-graders in Marilyn Wirth’s and Melissa Herrington’s classes built their own Gingerbread houses, Friday, Dec. 19. Just as in building a home, students were encouraged to think about the features they wanted. Matthew Massmann was busy drawing a blueprint of his house. He had created the form of his house at home – one bigger box with a smaller, roofed house on top. The bigger base was going to serve as his porch or deck and he planned to include decorative lights. Meanwhile, Massmann’s classmate Tyler Kuechle was drilling a hole in the roof of his pre-baked house. He purchased the house at a grocery store with his family. Massman was going to use the hole to display one of his toy dirt bikes, which would appear to be jumping over the house. Brandi Tessmer was busy decorating her juice bottle with blue frosting. It was the start of her creation, which would later look like cotton candy. “My grandma made my blue frosting,” Tessmer said. Other students were more interested in taste-testing their creations. Cody Weiland was covered with frosting as he asked for help opening his graham crackers, which would serve as the shingles for his house. “I think I am enjoying eating more than decorating,” Weiland said as he licked some of the frosting off of his fingers. Weiland created a big house covered in white frosting and adorned the sides with gum drop “Christmas lights.” “It’s his dream house,” classmate Taylor Nelson commented on Weiland’s house. Nelson was busy painting his house with chocolate frosting that a peer had shared with him. He, too, enjoyed eating while creating his home. Mitch Pramann offered this advice: “It’s more fun to decorate, but if you eat them, don’t eat the cardboard.” Other students were more interested in the creativity of their designs. Cassie Gregoire created steps for her house by stacking graham crackers at an angle. “I am going to use the banana runts for railing,” Gregoire said. Ryan Dammann made a Christmas tree by turning a sugar cone upside down. He made the tree green with frosting and decorated it with candy. Abby Borman made windows out of square, checkered pretzels. The window in the roof was see-through as Borman cut a hole for the window. Alek Young had a chimney on his roof. He creatively added Santa onto his house. He made Santa’s legs out of red gum drops, and added feet by “pasting” black M&Ms on top of the legs with white frosting. Brett Ostby mimicked Christmas lights with gummy worms. Kayla Myers made snow out of marshmallows and included a dropping draw-bridge door. And some students even had stories about their homes. Jody Vinar said that six people lived in her house. Some lived in the attic, some in the basement and others in the middle. Jamie Kurkowski had LEGO men and women outside of his house, some who rode motorcycles, one who drove the helicopter and the nurse and doctor who carried out “Bill” on a stretcher. “The helicopter came to rescue him (Bill),” Kurkowski said. He also named each of his LEGO people – one was him, another was his girlfriend, and the rest were his classroom friends. Making gingerbread homes has been a fifth-grade holiday tradition. After the houses are complete, other students take a tour of the homes, looking at the features and designs of each. “Every year it gets bigger and better,” Wirth said.
