Primary Gingerbread Party

This year I decided to have a Gingerbread Party for my primary class. It was lots of fun. In addition to having the kids currently in my class, I invited the two girls that moved to another ward part way through the year. It was so great to hear everyone cheer when I said they would be coming.

I had planned to make Gingerbread Houses first and if there was time decorate my house for Christmas and maybe some quieter games. I bought gingerbread kits from Ikea and I would highly recommend them. They are small and relatively inexpensive, the perfect choice if you want everyone to have their own. I decided to put the houses together before the kids got there but there were some construction issues. So my friend Jason took over the kitchen and I got the kids busy on decorating.


This is Jonathon and Donovan untangling the lights. Donovan has been the only boy in his class his whole life so this year I suggested we pray for another boy to join the class and Jonathon is the answer to our prayer. His entire family were baptized this September. And Donovan has made sure that Jonathon has felt welcome. Anytime he isn't at Church, Donovan calls to say he missed him, drops him off stuff from sharing time or our lessons. They play together all the time. It's been great!

We discovered that Jonathon is better at tangling than untangling. Maggie(she moved part way through the year) took over as she got frustrated watching Jonathon. Don't worry, Jonathon got to go in the kitchen and help with construction.

More untangling/tangling.

Zoe is a creative genius. She is one of the reasons I had no problem letting a bunch of 9 year olds decorate. As a matter of fact, I think they did a better job than I would have.

This is Dianna, another kid that left us part way through the year. When we finished decorating, the constructions were not fully resolved, so I pulled out this book call "The conversation piece". It has all sorts of questions, some serious, some silly and everything in between. Each kid got to pick a question to ask everyone and then everyone answered. There was a lot of laugh. Especially about the question about what two sports would you combine to make a new sport.

Maggie gleefully decorating her house. I don't think Maggie knows how to frown or walk. She skips everywhere laughing. It's wonderful how contagious it is.

Young Joo was very serious about her house and making sure she had the right candy. Her family immigrated to Canada 2 years ago and she is a shining example at how quickly kids learn. She reads as well as anyone in the class and she spoke no English before moving. This was her very first gingerbread house. She had lots of questions, because she wanted to make sure she explained everything to her family correctly.

This is Claire and the "little miss trouble" t-shirt explains everything. Boy is she fun. She was covered in icing by the end and it was like she thought she was the gingerbread house.

More serious Young Joo. This is soooo contrary to her true nature. Normally, I can't get her to stop giggling.

Jason helping Claire out.

Zoe was all about the thin layer of "snow".

So this is my friend Jason and the mess of melted sugar. The back of the boxes said to melt sugar, and instead of becoming gluey, just went mushing. It was a mess.

As a side note: please don't ask about Jason, it is very complicated and totally inappropriate for me to write about on a blog. But suffice it to say, I'm currently dealing with a broken heart.