Did your kids ever watch Bob The Builder ? That theme song is forever etched in my memories. We have done many a march around the house to that tune. This is especially so in this past COVID-year. Ellie, Ted and I have reacquainted and introduced ourselves with craft hobbies. Ted built two garden boxes for me. I’ve picked up sewing among other things. And, Ellie….well, she has really started to inherit our love of science and math. Ellie has a growing interest in finding ways to incorporate engineering design principles into her love of baking. For example, every Christmas, Ellie and I have a menu of baked goods throughout the holidays.
It’s mostly cookies. Ha! Sweet treats is the name of the game. When we started this tradition years ago, the cookies for our gingerbread house were from pre-made kits. You know the kind you can buy all-in-one from the store?!
Well, fast forward to about two years ago. Ellie announces that our Christmas Bake-off Challenge would be to build the gingerbread house from scratch. Everything from the cookie to the icing to the cutout dimension plan of the house itself. Let’s just say…mistakes were made; but luckily we recovered and the results were pretty good for a first year run I think. This past Christmas’ gingerbread house build was even better. She decided first that she wanted to do it as a sugar cookie house instead of gingerbread. Here’s the link to Ellie’s Thin & Crispy Sugar Cookie recipe. Plus it’s gluten-free.
Best yet, Ellie did all the baking and house dimension planning completely on her own. All we had to do was to sit down with her when it was time to assemble and decorate – i.e. the fun part. I am so proud of her initiative to apply critical thinking and creativity to something that also gives us quality time to spend as a family. She is definitely growing up to be a budding young scientist/engineer while staying grounded in good core values.
If you are also raising a creative ideator inventor, then continue to find ways to encourage them through every day things that they like to do. With that in mind, I thought I would share this article by Cool Mom Picks as a good resource for how your kids could be rewarded for their own innovations.
Our Christmas Bake-off Challenge 2019
The following is by Cool Mom Picks