Gifts and Gingerbread

Winter Break is finally here!!! I am taking a few, quick minute to post some pictures, before I go off to finish shopping, cleaning, and packing. I'm Canada bound tomorrow!!

(Not at ALL ready for the cold weather. I've been freezing here in AZ with the 50 degree weather...)

My favorite class Christmas party so far has been gingerbread houses. It is EASY and so much fun! We saved milk cartons and glued them together on boards as a base. I had parents bring in donations for the houses and come help. They pretty much ran the whole show! From setting up, helping make the houses, and cleaning up. They were lifesavers!

The creator of this awesome gingerbread house never leaves without giving me a hug and saying thank you. Today, she just wrote it out and told me she didn't need to say it, because I could just read it. She's so sweet!

After some serious deliberating, I gave my class homemade gingerbread play dough and a gingerbread man cookie cutter. It was perfect to hand out after we made gingerbread houses, and they LOVED it!!! I found these adorable cookie cutters at Michaels for 99 cents! I used my teacher discount and saved even more. I found several versions of the play dough recipe on pinterest, but this is the one I used. I loved it! It was easy to make, but took me about seven batches to make enough for my class. Each single batch made enough for about 4 or 5 students. I gave them a ball about 2 inches wide. After seven batches, I had enough for 30 gifts. Click here to get two different poems and the recipe I used. Enjoy!