Gingerbread House Making for 4 YO B-day

my kids have often made ginger bread houses at school, girl scouts, etc, made with small milk cartons as the underpinning and graham crackers as the "gingerbread". I think this acitivity works really well with older kids (8-12) in groups, and individually or with one or two kids at this age of 4. It will get VERY messy and they will want to eat the candy more than "glue" it to the houses.

I would suggest a much less messy craft for kids this age - maybe paper chains (using glue sticks) or baby christmas tree ornaments. A craft that my son made that was adorable was a snowman tealight holder made from a babyfood jar, white tissue paper torn in little peices and glued on, red yarn for a scarf and small bits of black felt for the "coal" mouth, an orange piece of felt for the carrot nose, etc. have fun!

we do the graham cracker houses every year!!

some tips:
wrap a piece of cardboard with tin foil as the base.
for the walls, create a graham cracker cube for strength
you can use a large rubber band to help hold the sides together.
place some frosting on the bottom cracker to hold in place.
marshmellow fluff is cute for the roofs, but will NOT hold it up
each kid should get their own bowl of frosting.
use popsicle sticks instead of knives.
i like to put 'kits' together so that everyone has a little bit of everything
already in front of them so there is no reaching/fighting.

for the decorations:
hersheys works good as windows/doors
marshmellows work as snowmen and bushes
hershey kisses work as trees
pull twizzlers work as strings/lights
nerds work as lights (with twizzlers)
M&Ms work as stones

It also helps to make the walls/cubes ahead of time so that the kids just have to put the roofs on a decorate.

My daughters preschool class used empty, clean individual size milk cartons. They "glued" graham crackers on the sides of the milk carton with store bought frosting (in a tub). They frosted the graham crackers with the frosting (food coloring for various colors), added gum drops, M & M's, etc. This kept the size of the gingerbread houses down so that they weren't so time consuming and could be quickly finished.

when I was younger (6-13) I made gingerbread houses everyyear with my grandmother and cousins at my grandma's friends house (who was a baker) she stuck (with icing) the gingerbread house onto circles of cardbord (you can get at a cake store) so they were easier to work with and our houses had a yard. we would start with the roofs and spread icing on and then decorate it. then we spread icing on the cardboard and made the yard. some fac ideas were using broken pretzols rods for fire wood and two candy canes for santas sleigh. then we were given a tube with icing to decorate the house itself. candy was set in bowls in the center of the table and we all stood around it. when we were finished we sprinkled powder sugar and ediable sparkles (cake shop again) on the houses with a sifter to look like fresh snow. so much fun!

This is such a fun activity. We did this every year growing up and I've continued with mine. I think you can do it with this age group since you're making the houses in advance. I would make sure you have a couple of the parents staying to help and have the separate kits(icing bag/candy) for each kid. The gram crackers are a huge time saver and I second the milk cartoon suggestion. I actually use hot glue to put the houses together and it works great (kids only eat the candy anyway). When doing it with a group we use the Styrofoam trays for the bases for our houses (like the butchers uses). They will usually give them to you. Good luck and it sounds like you'll have any awesome party.

when we tried to make a gingerbread house when I was little it was a nightmare. But the other day I was in costco and they have them preassembled and you just decorate. Awesome. So that may be a good idea. I do attribute the problem before to more pure ingredients that wouldn't hold it together. Now our foods come with such wonderful things like high fructose corn syrup and hydrogentated oils to keep them sticking together. Decorating houses may fun fun, but I would rather decorate (and eat) cookies. There are some foam houses you can make. we did a halloween one. BUt if they are glittery get some glues because the glitter covers the adhesive and they don't stick anymore. you can add paint/glitter glue too.

We started our annual ginger bread party 6 years ago. We've learned to simplify over the years. We use graham crackers and glue-gun them together and to a cardboard base. Then we use a frosting recipe with creme of tartar for the icing. My suggestion would be to have as much adult help as possible. Kids tend to want to just dump an entire bag of candy on their house. Good luck and have fun.

If you make the houses ahead of time, then I think 4 year olds could certainly decorate them with frosting and candy.