Putting The Pretty In Preschool

Finding Beauty In Everyday Early Childhood Experiences

gingerbread

Melted Candy Gingerbread Ornaments

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Making melted candy gingerbread ornaments was something I’ve wanted to try ever since viewing a beautiful four-sided, sweet-tasting red and white gingerbread house on Twitter a few years ago. It’s an eye-pleasing baking activity and a festive science experiment so I highly recommend giving the activity a go.

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Melted Candy Ornament Supplies

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Gather the following supplies for this simple candy science activity:

  • red and/or green striped round peppermint candies
  • metal gingerbread cookie cutters
  • no-stick cooking spray
  • parchment or wax paper
  • cookie pans
  • cutting board
  • knife
  • vegetable oil
  • wooden skewer

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Melted Candy Gingerbread Ornament Tips

Before trying this minty STEAM activity, I read a few blog posts about making melted peppermint candy designs. This detailed Melted Peppermint Candy Ornaments post by onelittleproject.com was particularly helpful and had great tips.

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Making The Melted Candy Christmas Ornaments

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To make the melted gingerbread candy ornaments, start by picking out metal cookie cutters for the task. Generously sized gingerbread people and a house were my cookie cutters of choice.

Spray the cookie cutters with no-stick cooking spray.

Next, add parchment paper to one or more cookie pans and set the greased cookie cutters on the pans.

Then insert unwrapped red or green striped peppermint candies inside the cookie cutter shapes. For larger spaces, cut candies into halves or quarters on a cutting board and use the smaller pieces to fill in the gaps.

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Baking The Melted Candy Gingerbread Ornaments

To bake the candy gingerbread ornaments, set the oven temperature to 350 degrees.

Next, put the peppermint candy-filled cookie cutters in the oven and heat them for around six minutes.

Stay by the oven and make sure to turn the oven light on to view the candies melting. It’s okay to take a peek…the sweet creations won’t jump out of the oven. But they will melt down if they are in the oven too long.

When the candies are joined together and a little of the melted candy starts seeping around the cookie cutter edges, take the baking pans out of the oven.

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After around two minutes, dip a wooden skewer in vegetable oil and carefully make a little hole near the top of each decoration so a string can be drawn through.  Then let the eye-catching creations cool for around fifteen minutes.

Before the ornaments cool completely, carefully pull away the sides of the cookie cutters from the candy shapes and gently push them out. Oh-so-carefully break off melted bits around the peppermint ornaments if there are any.

Let the beautiful striped ornaments cool completely.

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How The Melted Gingerbread Ornaments Turned Out

This is where I need to come clean. My candy gingerbread ornaments didn’t turn out perfectly. Each one had one broken bit. The red and white gingerbread person had two broken bits.

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But as a first try at making melted candy ornaments, I considered it a success. I determined afterward that I had left the candied shapes in the oven just a little too long (probably eight minutes) and needed to be even more careful in removing them from the cookie cutters after baking. So a second attempt would likely be more successful.

The activity did turn out well enough that I would confidently be able to introduce it to family members or a group of preschool students. The patterned ornaments were fun to put back together as mini puzzles, and they would be tasty treats broken down into small bits and shared. Broken ornaments could be crushed and infused with playdough or baked in a peppermint cookie recipe when the science experiment was over. And there could be a conversation about stripes, patterns, halves, quarters, and the smell and taste of peppermint.

Striped peppermint candies are economical to buy, and I’ll surely give this stunning melted candy gingerbread ornaments STEAM activity another go. How about you? Will you give it a try?

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More Peppermint Candy Activities

Christmas Peppermint Sensory Bin

Candy Cane Tree Experiment

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Gingerbread Sensory Bin

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A chickpea-based gingerbread sensory bin children will love. Shop the dollar stores for gingerbread accessories to fill the bin.

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This gingerbread sensory bin is quick and easy to set up. Most of the supplies in the bin are dollar store finds, so the activity is low-cost. So why not set it up for your little learners this holiday season?

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Follow me on Pinterest for more early learning activities.

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Supplies To Collect

A super fun gingerbread sensory bin with a chickpea base. An economical bin with dollar store gingerbread accessories.

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The gingerbread-themed supplies gathered for the bin are:

  • cookie cutters
  • cookie tin
  • ice cube tray
  • gingerbread people ornaments and game pieces
  • gingerbread house and candy cane ornaments

Also in the bin are:

  • bell garland strips
  • peppermint erasers

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The Gingerbread Sensory Bin

An easy-to-put-together gingerbread sensory bin with a chickpea base. An economical bin with dollar store gingerbread accessories.

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This gingerbread-themed sensory bin has a dyed chickpea base. You can find out how to dye chickpeas in my blog post titled “Chinese New Year Sensory Play.”

Note: You can skip coloring the chickpeas and use undyed ones instead. They are the same color as gingerbread cookies!

The chickpeas are spread out in a white bus/utility tub. This size bin works well for one to three children to use at a time.

The cookie tin, ice cube tray, ornaments, garland, and erasers are from dollar stores. You would be able to find cookie cutters there too.

This sensory bin is a great follow-up activity to reading gingerbread character stories and doing songs and fingerplays about gingerbread people.

A chickpea-based gingerbread sensory bin children will love. Shop the dollar stores for gingerbread accessories to fill the bin.

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Other Supplies For The Gingerbread Bin

There are endless supplies that work in this bin. Other supplies that could be added are:

  • large gingerbread cookie cutters
  • gingerbread people erasers
  • wiggly eyes
  • pompoms
  • buttons
  • rickrack strips
  • cookie jar

Whatever the supplies, this cheery gingerbread sensory bin is bound to be a huge hit with your little learners!

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Related:

Gingerbread Playdough

Scissor Skill Gingerbread Man Craft

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Gingerbread Playdough

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This gingerbread playdough tray is filled with festive loose parts. The spicy playdough recipe is easy to make and little hands can help.

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Christmas playdough recipes are all about the smells, and this gingerbread playdough is no exception. The fragrant recipe is easy to make and doesn’t require cooking or using boiling water. This makes it perfect for early learners to help make, and they can participate from start to finish.

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The Playdough Ingredients

This scented gingerbread playdough requires no cooking or boiling water. Invite early learners to help make it from start to finish and can experience all the aromatic smells.

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Gather the following for this homemade gingerbread-scented dough:

  • 1 cup flour
  • ½ cup salt
  • 1 ½ teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1 ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon ground cloves
  • 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
  • ½ cup water

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How To Make Gingerbread Playdough

This homemade scented gingerbread playdough and the festive loose parts are ready to be explored by little learners.

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Measure all of the above ingredients in a bowl. Invite early learners to help.

Mix the spicy mixture into a dough, and knead it thoroughly. The kneading helps strengthen little helpers’ hand and finger muscles.

Four spices in addition to salt are included in the dough. Allowing your little helpers to smell each one is a rich sensory opportunity.

The spices add color to this all-natural playdough, so no additional color is needed.

Another plus for this homemade playdough is that it can be used in a play invitation as soon as it has been made. It doesn’t need cool down time like a cooked playdough or recipe that uses boiling water would.

This recipe can easily be doubled or tripled to be enough for a group of children.

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Gingerbread Playdough Invitation

After helping make the playdough, little learners will love using it to mold and decorate gingerbread houses and people. Offer loose parts in a party tray for a spicy playdough invitation.

There are many opportunities to be creative with the festive loose parts in this spicy gingerbread playdough invitation your children will love.

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The loose parts in the tray above are:

  • gingerbread house and people cookie cutters
  • gingerbread ornaments
  • cut sparkly pipe cleaners and pompoms
  • cut rick rack and straws
  • buttons
  • candy cane and gingerbread erasers
  • bows
  • bead garland
  • wiggly eyes

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In this next tray, gingerbread house shapes, felt gingerbread people, beads, and rubber peppermint lollipops are included in the mix.

There are many opportunities to be creative with the festive loose parts in this spicy gingerbread playdough invitation your children will love.

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Gingerbread Playdough Invitation Benefits

This heavenly-scented playdough invitation offers many benefits:

  • Exercising creativity by decorating pretend cookies.
  • Language development by using playdough cutouts to retell gingerbread stories or develop new ones.
  • Gaining hand and finger strength by rolling, pressing, and kneading dough, and decorating it with loose parts.
  • Role-playing working in a pretend bakery and baking cookies in a play oven.

Tip: A small box with a rack placed inside makes an easy DIY oven for pretend play.

A cardboard box with a rack set inside makes a terrific play oven to bake gingerbread playdough cookies and muffins.

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How To Store Gingerbread Playdough

This amazing gingerbread-scented dough is not sticky, rolls out just fine, and works well with cookie cutters.

To store it, wrap it in saran wrap and place it in an airtight container. Doing this will keep it nice and moist. To my delight, the playdough is even easier to work with when you pull it out for additional play.

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More Playdough Recipes and Activities:

Apple Playdough Tray

Edible Playdough Turkey

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Scented Playdough Activities

Pumpkin Playdough Activities

Gingerbread Playdough

Orange-scented Playdough Invitation

Chocolate Mint Playdough

Christmas Playdough

Offer this lemon cypress scented playdough invitation with cut silk poinsettia leaves and bracts.

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Santa Claus Playdough Tray

Valentine’s Day Playdough Activities

St. Patrick’s Day Playdough Tray

Easter Playdough Tray

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Chocolate Mint Playdough

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Include this soft, heavenly-smelling, no-cook chocolate mint playdough in your holiday activities for early learners.

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This no-cook chocolate mint playdough smells divine! I usually opt for a variation of my favorite stovetop-cooked playdough for early learning activities, as I always make a huge batch of it. But this soft, pliable recipe turns out perfectly and stores well in the fridge. It’s the perfect addition to any holiday celebration. Since it is December, it’s being featured with Christmas-themed accessories.

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Follow me on Pinterest for more playdough ideas.

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Chocolate Mint Playdough Recipe

Gather the following ingredients for this recipe:

  • 1 ½ cup flour
  • ½ cup cocoa
  • ½ cup salt
  • 2 tbsp. cream of tartar
  • 2 tbsp. mint flavoring
  • 3 tbsp. oil
  • 1 ½ cup boiling water

Combine and mix the flour, cocoa, salt, and cream of tartar in a bowl.

Add boiling water.

Drop in the oil and mint flavoring.

Stir all ingredients together.

Knead the dough on a cutting board when cool.

Store in a plastic bag in the fridge.

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Playdough Activities

Set out the playdough with rolling pins, holiday cookie cutters, and festive loose parts.

Oh so heavenly chocolate mint playdough and holiday-themed accessoies.

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Soft, pliable, chocolate mint playdough recipe and holiday-themed accessories.

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When using a second time, offer cupcake liners, festive erasers, and white glitter for children to make chocolate confections with. Gingerbread and candy cane erasers are the “stars of the show” below.

Christmas accessories and glitter add a festive touch to this chocolate mint playdough activitiy.

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Tip: Little fingers will get stained with chocolate during these playdough activities. Make sure there is a handwashing station nearby.

Holiday erasers and white glitter add a festive touch to this chocolate mint playdough activity.

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Your little charges may be tempted to taste the playdough since it smells so heavenly. It might be nice to have a small chocolate treat for them to eat after wrapping up this play invitation. A chocolate mint flavored treat would be ideal.

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