Bring a Story to Life!

I love the idea of reading a book with your kiddos and then creating something from the book, creating something about the characters, or just creating whatever the book inspires! I thought of this concept at the first of the summer since we were reading so much and going to the library a lot and since my kids always LOVE crafts and fun activities it was the perfect way to think of fun projects.

So last week we read, The Gingerbread Man by Karen Schmidt. This is one of my favorite versions! Then of course we created... Gingerbread Men! Mia was sure that they were going to jump right out of the oven! They had done it in their school and the cooks at the school cafeteria had baked the gingerbread cookies and "peeked" before they were done and the gingerbread men cookies ran away! Who knows to where- the principal informed them of the bad news and they didn't get to eat them since they were gone. Sad. I was sure that wasn't going to happen to us. ;-)

Eileen's Spicy Gingerbread Men
1/2 c margarine

1/2 c sugar

1/2 c molasses

1 egg yolk

2 c sifted all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground cloves

1 tsp ginger

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

In a large bowl cream together the margarine and sugar until smooth. Stir in molasses and egg yolk. Combine the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and nutmeg; blend into the molasses mixture until smooth. Cover, and chill for at least one hour. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut into desired shapes with cookie cutters. Place cookies 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, until firm. Remove from cookie sheets to cool on wire racks. Frost or decorate when cool. Makes 2 ½ dozen. YUM!

Colby and Syd and Mia LOVED creating and decorating- seriously this little project took WAY longer than I thought. They could have done it all afternoon! And even when they were all cooked up they wanted to start all over again and make more! *Make enough dough so they can have plenty of gingerbread men to make and decorate.* Be ready for a mess! Oh the joys of creativity!
* Make sure to refrigerate the dough first so the kiddos don't get frustrated with squishy sticky dough. I refrigerated mine for a few days until the time was right to make a disaster. ;-) The dough was perfect to make nice firm cookies.
Make sure to have fun sprinkles or candy on hand to have them put on the cookies before baking. This is a great project for ALL ages! If they are older and need a challenge you can have them do patterns or symetrical cookies... twinner cookies...and even cookies holding hands! In the upper left hand side of Syd's tray is "Brescia, Mia and her" all holding hands. She was wishing I had purple and orange Phoenix Suns colors to decorate them with!

I took way too many pics... so here are some of them with our "steps" to Gingerbread Cookies... that won't get away. ;-)

I made frosting that the kids dipped their cookies in as they ate them. I was going to glaze them with a thin frosting but the kiddos said, No! We like them just the way they are! Perfect.

Our next Story and Project... Eric Carle's book, "Little Cloud" and making cloud pics/shapes with cotton balls on blue cardstock. I'll post more ideas soon- I would love hearing any of your fav books that we could do a craft with!