Southwest Licking School System

Gingerbread houses a sweet way to learn math concepts

By building and decorating gingerbread houses, Kirkersville Elementary fourth graders not only explored the mathematical concepts of perimeter, area and volume, but also learned some valuable lessons about earning and budgeting money.

"I've been doing this project for eight years," said Mrs. Reasoner. "The kids really enjoy making the gingerbread houses, and it's something they look forward to."

The first part of the project involved earning money for good behavior. For the past four weeks, students in Mrs. Frey's, Mrs. James', and Mrs. Reasoner's fourth-grade classes have been earning a make-believe dollar for every day in class. Students who misbehaved were fined, but those who were very good earned extra. To keep track of their earnings, students received a "pay stub" every week. The most that could be earned was $44.

"The behavior component of this project was developed to help the students stay focused as the holidays approach," Mrs. Reasoner said.

The fourth-graders learned about perimeter by creating paper mock-ups of their gingerbread houses and measuring them. Then each student tiled the outside of the paper house with geometrical shapes to study the area. Finally, the inside of the paper house was filled with mini-marshmallows to explore the concept of volume.

The highlight of the project was building the gingerbread houses out of graham crackers and royal icing.

Wal-Mart graham crackers are used for the walls and roof. The giant retailer is a conscientious supplier-this year, when many of the boxes were found to contain broken crackers, Wal-Mart employees replaced them with unbroken ones at no charge.

"That really saved the day," Mrs. Reasoner said. "They may be a big company, but they took care of us."

Mrs. Reasoner made the royal icing for all three classes-a total of 7 gallon bags of icing, made of 21 pounds of confectioner's sugar and 6 dozen eggs.

Store-bought buttercream icing won't work on a gingerbread house, because it never dries. Instead, it seeps into the walls and roof, making them soggy and weak. Royal icing, which is mostly sugar and egg whites, works perfectly but can't be found ready-made on a supermarket shelf.

On building day, students used their play-money earnings to purchase decorations for their gingerbread houses. Chocolate chips were available for $0.50 each, and a scoop of sprinkles or coconut flakes cost $1. Marshmallow peep trees were big-ticket items at $2 a piece. A plastic cup of royal icing cost $1, and a scoop of Chex cereal to shingle a gingerbread roof set the buyer back another dollar.

Each child totaled up the cost of their "building supplies," and then compared that with their available funds.

"Calculating the money can be a struggle for some students," Mrs. Reasoner said. "When the math problem is abstract, they have no problem with it, but the real-world situation seems harder to grasp."

The gingerbread house building project started eight years ago when Mrs. Reasoner was a student teacher. She and third-grade teacher Mrs. Hauck developed the idea together.

"We wanted a fun and practical way to explain area and perimeter," said Mrs. Hauck. Many happy fourth-graders would agree.