Graham cracker gingerbread house

This little edible house is a super fast activity.  We made this right before bedtime because the graham cracker house my daughter made at pre-school that day got squished on the way home and the poor little dear was sobbing over the crushed mess in her backpack. 

Time:  10-15 minutes
Age:  2-3+
Mess/Cleanup:  5 minutes for a simple house like this one

• What you need: 
• Graham crackers
• White can of frosting
• Candy for decorating
• Optional:  Santa hats for Halloween pumpkin and your kid

Substitutions/suggestions: 
Use whatever food you have on hand.  We had half a bag of peanut M&Ms left over from Halloween and some rainbow sprinkles.  I planned to use some candy canes but didn't need them.  Pre-school used raisins and banana chips. 
You could also just buy one of those gingerbread house kits.  I got the mini village this year and it is terribly cute!!!! (See photos at the end)

The holidays all blend together these days

Step 1:  Crack your graham cracker into pieces for the walls. 



Next time I might make the house square for added stability but this worked fine.  You could add an empty milk carton or juice box to the middle to make it stronger, too.

 Step 2:  Put frosting on the edges of the biggest graham cracker pieces and stick 'em all together to make four walls

Step 3:  Snap another big graham cracker in half, dab some frosting on the edges, and make a pointed roof.  Note:  My roof slipped several times because I had too much frosting, but it stayed put after a minute.



This odd little scrap of broken graham cracker became a tree on the side of the house

 Step 4:  Add candy!  Still-sniffling daughter wanted "lights" on her house so I improvised with the forlorn, forgotten Halloween M&Ms.  Silver non-pareils would also make fantastic lights.  The squished graham house was soon forgotten. 



You might need to eat some of the M&Ms that don't fit the color scheme ;)

 Warning:  The roof on the finished house became quite lopsided overnight, so if you want this to last use a milk carton or something else inside the house to keep it up.

And here is the sad little house that prompted this whole activity.



The annihilated graham cracker house from pre-school. It was entirely too healthy, anyway. Building materials should be bad for you! This is jelly and raisins and bananas!  Pshaw!



This is the Wilton gingerbread village kit with extra Nerd rope, candy canes, Andes candies, Red Vines and peppermint swirl kisses

-Nancy