Gingerbread joy had at Southwest Elementary School

January 1, 2020
Alice Via

While many of us are spending the last few days before the holiday break buying presents and preparing for family gatherings, teachers spend hours preparing for holiday parties for their students. All of this preparation ends up being a gift of love that wraps each student with happiness and fun.

This year, the class party for fourth grade teachers Lauren Forste, Krystal Barnes, and Tia Morgan and their students at Southwest Elementary School was no exception. As family members entered the cafeteria at the school, they were met with an array of artfully planned and beautifully decorated gingerbread houses that teams of fourth grade students built in cooperative groups. Not only were these houses beautiful and looked delicious, the plans were made according to specs and proportionately built.

"At first, there were a lot of fails,” Molly J. Hendrix of Mrs. Morgan’s 4th grade class said. “The roof kept falling down, but we worked together and made it sturdy. I was very excited that we won.”

Zackery Hoover, also of Mrs. Morgan’s class, continued, “We all had really good ideas and worked together well. We all had the same ideas. We were kind and respectful to each other. When we won, I felt really good and excited.”

To add interest to this ambitious project, there were prizes awarded for the most unique, the cleanest build, the overall best, and the most complex design. Family members, any available staff members of the school, and friends of the students voted according to the four categories. It was very difficult to choose a “best” of category as each gingerbread house was truly unique and interesting. While the voting was going on, the students were busy decorating cookies at tables behind the gingerbread houses.

Sidney Roe and Holly Johnson, of Mrs. Forste’s class, both had their reservations about this project but thought it turned out great.

“We listened to each other and talked about it. We would take some people’s ideas and then …” said Holly while Sidney jumped in, “Turn them into ours.”

And how do they think the project turned out? Sidney summed it up, “I was like, ‘Yes." Somebody got to do something that was important to them.”

As the voting ended, the winners were announced, and the gingerbread houses made the slow trips back to their classrooms. All of this reminded one of scenes from holiday TV shows where event planners put on such programs in fancy hotels. Yet here we were at our beloved school in Washburn. Pretty sure these 4th grade students will jump on their buses with hearts full of happiness as they go home for the break.

Above, Addison Edie, Addison Palmer, and Amy Bee won “Most Unique” in the gingerbread project during Southwest's fourth grade holiday party.

Kayden Barker, Zackery Hoover and Molly J Hendrix won “Cleanest Build” in the gingerbread project during the party.

The "Overall Best" winners of the gingerbread project are pictured with their house. From left to right: Kylie Ruiz, Tynlee Harr and Jackson Douglas.

Sidney Roe, Holly Johnson, and Maycen Whitt won “Most Complex Design” in the Southwest fourth grade gingerbread project.