I recently had the pleasure of decorating gingerbread houses with one of my best friends and her kids, Little Man (8) and Lil’ Bit (5). Target’s Archer Farms brand sells these amazing kits where the house is already constructed. They also had some color coordinated candy kits for decoration. We chose the holiday set with red, white and green candies, but they also have the traditional colorful set if you prefer. While we were decorating I noticed the amount of language the kids were using and I was instantly more excited about the activity (cause I’m a speech-language nerd).

Sequencing

We talked about what we would do first, next, and last.

WH questions

Where do you want to place the green, gummy tree?

When do you want to decorate the windows?

Why did you choose to add the jelly beans there?

Who do you think would like to live in a gingerbread house?

Math-based language

The patterns on the houses were fun to create and discuss. Lil’ Bit enjoyed completing the ABC pattern with the candies on the roof of her house. She also created some symmetry with the gummy candies on the other side of the house.

Adjectives

The candies had different shapes, textures, tastes and colors. Because the candies in this set were all red, white and green, the kids had to use different types of adjectives to describe the ones they wanted to use next.

Prepositions

on top, above, beside, below, over, under, in front, behind, around, up, down, etc. Basically all the locative words you can think of can be applied when decorating gingerbread houses.

Requesting

I took control over the candy dish, forcing the kids to request their decorations.

Pure creative fun

Little Man used the candies to create a snowball fight scene in the front yard of his house. He was really excited to point out that the white icing made the snowball look as if it had “gone splat” upon impact.

Overall, this was so much fun, I’ve decided I’d like to recreate the process with my speech students next week.