The building part of this unit is the culminating project of this curriculum unit. It ties together all of the prior aspects of the project and adds in the challenge of transforming something two dimensional into something three dimensional. Finally, this building allows the students to express their innate creativity, as they will design and build it themselves. Creative outlets are increasingly rare in the new standardized test driven school culture and are, therefore, all the more precious when they are available.
Design and drawings
The design is one of the most important parts to any project. It lays the groundwork for everything else to come. As such, it requires quite a bit of thought and supervision.
My intent is that the students will have a sketch book full of interesting bits and pieces by this point in time. They should have been gathering ideas for their houses from the neighborhood walk and from the architectural overview. I would also encourage the students to sketch things that they see and like as they walk through the city. By this time, the students should also have a good idea about the building properties of their potential building materials from their experiments. All of this information should go into their designs at this point.
Students will use pieces of buildings that they have seen and liked to create sketches of a few different ideas. Then, in consultation with their classmates and teacher they will choose one of their initial sketches to use as the basis of their design. Once a sketch is chosen, the students will draw some elevations of the house. This stage is extremely important because the elevations will form the basis of their cardboard constructions. You may want to have the students draw their houses to scale at this point, too. Incidentally, this is also a very good place to reiterate the ideas of proportion and balance that will have been introduced in the observations section. Creating drawings to scale is also a good way to introduce fractions.
If you have time, the inclination, or an especially interested or gifted class, there is quite a bit that can be done at this stage of the project. Mechanical drawing, or drawing according to a fixed set of rules, is a fascinating topic and is a useful way to transition between two and three dimensions and could be introduced at this time. Section and plan views, while not really necessary for gingerbread houses, are another facet of architecture which could also be introduced at this time. Isometric views and other sorts of perspective drawings would also be fun to play with, again, if there is time and ability.
There are a number of books on this topic to assist teachers who may be unfamiliar with the concepts. Frank Ching's book, which I have listed below in the resources, leans more towards architectural drawing than engineering drawings, which makes it especially useful in the context of this unit.
Research building techniques
This is another piece which may or may not be appropriate for all classes. In classes which have a number of individuals interested in construction, shop classes, technical science classes, or other similar groups, this might be a good place to introduce research techniques. In classes that do not have enough time to devote to this or that lack interest or inclination to these topics, this research might be better done by the teacher.
One of the most difficult parts of building a gingerbread house is getting the piece to stick together. This is where the building techniques come in. In regular construction, there are many different ways to convince different materials to stick together. For example, in wood working everything from nails pegs, bolts and screws, to specialized joints like dovetails, to glues, to lashings is used. In gingerbread architecture, the thickness of the pieces tends to limit the range of attachment procedures. Traditionally, large dollops of royal icing are used to hold everything together, but this does not necessarily have to be the way a particular house is made. Furthermore, particularly where the roof is concerned, this may not be the best way to attach the pieces. As a result, I strongly recommend researching various attachment techniques from both the traditional gingerbread world as well as the wider construction world. I find techniques that are used to make boxy things like drawers and book cases are useful. Finally, this research is also useful in that it ties in nicely with the spirit of the Connecticut standard on which this unit is based.
Cardboard construction
This stage of the project can be very difficult for students who do not have very good spatial abilities. It involves moving from a two dimensional pictures to a three dimensional object, which can be very difficult for a student who has trouble with geometry or with poor spatial abilities. I strongly recommend building a model that can be fitted together which shows how you get from a piece of cardboard, essentially two dimensional, to a house, which is three dimensional.
This stage can be practice for the actual gingerbread house. This will probably be the case in my class. However, this can be the final project if gingerbread, for whatever reason does not work in a particular classroom. In any case, it is very important.
There are two possible approaches to this stage of the project. The first involves corrugated cardboard. The second requires a thinner cardboard like oaktag or cardstock. Both have merits which will be discussed below. In both cases piece of the house are drawn without decorations on the cardboard, are cut out, and fitted together. This is where the research into construction techniques begins to pay off.
Corrugated cardboard has several factors going for it. First, it is readily available and can almost always be obtained free. Food service employees will frequently give you the big boxes that lunch and/or breakfast came in if you ask nicely. If that doesn't work, many stores will give you the boxes that they would otherwise throw away. Liquor stores are almost always a good place to get cardboard, but some school districts may have a problem with the liquor logo on the box, so check first. Another advantage of corrugated cardboard is that is approximates many of the properties of gingerbread. It is approximately the same thickness as gingerbread, which is especially helpful if you are building a practice house. This thickness is an important consideration, particularly where pieces join together, which is frequently neglected in the calculations of first time house builders. Another advantage of corrugated cardboard is that its stiffness is similar to that of gingerbread. If the house stands in corrugated cardboard, then it will probably stand in gingerbread. However, an important consideration in this respect is that cardboard is much lighter than gingerbread; it is much less dense. It is important to remember that while the cardboard is stiff like gingerbread, it may not be supporting quite as much weight as the gingerbread will, particularly if frosting and candies are to be added to the final house.
A lighter weight cardboard like oaktag or cardstock is also a possibility for a practice house. This can also be obtained free, but it is more difficult to get in large pieces. Shoe boxes are a good source of this type of cardboard and can be obtained from some shoe stores. Boxes from boots are especial useful because they have bigger pieces of cardboard. Old manila file folders are another good free source of this cardboard, but they are again limited in size. While, light weight cardboard does not have the thickness or stiffness that corrugated cardboard has, it is much easier to use when you actually cut out the gingerbread. It also may be easier to decorate if the cardboard house is to be the final project.
The cardboard construction phase is a good time to make revisions to the original plan. It will be come increasingly obvious to the students that simpler is easier to build. However, the students should not be allowed to get too discouraged because there is quite bit that can be done with icing in the later decoration of the house.
Make the gingerbread
There are many different recipes for gingerbread, but most contain the basic ingredients or flour, eggs, spices, sugar (including molasses), and some other liquid like milk or water. Whatever recipe you choose, there are several good ones in the books in the gingerbread section of the references, I recommend that you try the recipe first because some work well for cookies, but they are too crumbly for houses.
Essentially, the process of making the gingerbread houses is the same for almost all of the recipes. First, you mix up the dough. Then, the dough is rolled out to a thickness generally specified in the recipe. The pieces are then cut out, transferred to a baking sheet, baked and cooled. Then, the pieces are assembled into the house.
There are a few tip and tricks that I found that seem to help in this process. First, allow several days to complete the building of the house. Most gingerbread dough will have to be chilled before it is rolled out, so this kills quite a bit of time. Additionally, the icing can take quite a while to dry, and the icing must be dry to hold. This means that the icing on the walls needs to be given time to dry before the roof can go on. Furthermore, if decorations for the house walls are elaborate, they may need to be done and allowed to dry before the house is put together.
There are several things that can be done to make baking and decorating easier. Parchment paper is very useful because the dough can stay on it from the time it is rolled out to the time it is cooled. A piece of parchment paper may be used below the dough and on top of it while the dough is being rolled. The paper helps to keep the dough from sticking to the rolling pin. One the dough has been rolled, the top sheet of parchment may be used to trace the shapes of the house pieces that need to be cut out. If the pieces are cut carefully, the excess dough may be peeled away and the entire bottom piece of parchment can be transferred to the baking sheet. After baking, the entire piece of parchment, gingerbread and all, can be transferred to the cooling rack. Finally, when the time comes to clean up, the baking sheets will not have bits of gingerbread dough stuck to them because the parchment will have protected the baking sheets. Parchment is also a useful material when it comes to decorating. Parchment is easily made into cones which can be filled with different colors of icing. At the end of the decorating session, the parchment cones are disposable. There are several cooking sites online that give instructions for making parchment paper cones. Finally, soup cans or blocks may be helpful in supporting walls or the roof while the icing dries.
Finally, while there are some necessities for baking such as mixing bowls and an oven, there are a number of simple substitutions that can be made to help cut the cost of this unit. For example, rolling pins are expensive, so if they are not available, almost any smooth, round, long object can be used. Wooden dowels are a good substitute, as are tall glass containers that resemble wine bottles. Many recipes suggest that the cook buys special rubber bands to get the dough to roll out to a specific thickness. These are unnecessary. Instead, guides of the proper thickness may be used. Meter sticks will probably work for most recipes. The meter sticks are laid parallel on the table on either side of the dough. The dough is then rolled out until the rolling pin can rest on the two guides.
Construct the house
The last piece is, of course, putting the house together. This can be a complicated process, but if you have built the house out of cardboard first, it is much easier. One of the complications of this process is that it takes time for the icing to dry, so the house must be built slowly. For example, the wall joints need to be dry and solid before the roof goes on. Otherwise, the house collapses. Overall though, this is one of the most fulfilling parts of this project and will be an amusing and exciting experience to watch. This is when the magic happens; this is when the students' dreams and imaginings become reality.
Because most modern school districts frown upon grades based on magic and dreams, I recommend a rubric for grading the final project. I find that it helps my students if I give them the rubric before they start projects like this one because it helps them to focus their ideas. Some suggestions for the rubric might include a final finished size, a certain number of design elements, or a theme for their houses. The final grading might also involve an essay explaining how certain decisions were made in the design and construction of the house or a discussion of how the student's plans had changed based on what they learned as they went through the process. After all, science is all about communicating the results of experience.