Gingerbread Houses

Food in general is questionable territory for Ty.  It takes repeated exposure, a bit of creativity, and a lot of enthusiasm to encourage him to even interact with a food, nevermind eat it.  Needless to say, food play is a large part of our daily eating routine.  Actually, we spend more time playing and interacting with food than we do eating it. 

So when Christmas rolled around, making gingerbread houses was a natural activity to incorporate to our daily food play routine.  Best of all, it involved his all-time favorite food:  graham crackers! 

I love this activity for a few reasons.  First of all, it's a traditional seasonal activity that naturally accompanies all the lights, candy canes, and red and green decor.  But it is also such a great non-threatening way to interact with new and familiar foods.  There is no pressure to eat any of them, so as a result, the foods leave a positive impression on the mind of the snobby eater!

These gingerbread houses are actually made from graham crackers - a simple food that is more likely to be laying around the kitchen than a slab of gingerbread!

Ingredients/Tools for One Small House:
- graham crackers
- frosting
- assorted candies, small foods, sprinkles, etc (anything that might be fun to play with!)

How to Build a House:
1) Be creative!  Use the graham cracker squares to form some type of house.  (I promise, style does not matter - your child will be incredibly impressed with any house you build!)
2) Put the frosting inside of a plastic sandwich baggie, and cut off a small corner of the baggie to allow a small opening where you can squeeze the frosting through. 
3) Squeeze the frosting onto the edges of your house where walls will meet to assemble.  I recommend building this on a paper plate for easy transfer! Be careful - it will be loose for a while!
4) When your masterpiece is complete, let it sit for several hours so the frosting can harden and set.  For the impatient parents like myself, the freezer is an effective option as well!
5) Once the house is secure, go crazy!  Show your child how to use frosting as "glue" and how to stick candy pieces and sprinkles on the frosting to decorate the house.  This is the fun part!

For Ty, it took two rounds of gingerbread house decorating to warm up to the foods and presentation of the crackers.  By the time we finished decorating the second house though, he cried because he didn't want to stop! 

Happy house decorating!