With Christmas fast approaching, you’ll likely want to enjoy some quality time with your little ones over the festive period. There are many seasonal play-based learning activities you can set up for home learning, engaging children's minds and helping them develop fine motor skills while they're away from day nursery. Christmas baking is one of the best play-based learning activities as it gives children the opportunity to pour, mix, and get their hands mucky!
Read on to find our gingerbread biscuit recipe, along with our advice on how you can make baking a stimulating home-learning activity while having some festive fun!
The Ingredients
100g salted butter
3 tbsp golden syrup
100g dark muscovado sugar
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tbsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
225g plain flour
50g icing sugar
Preparation
Set the oven to 190℃/ 170℃ fan/ gas mark 5. After your child has washed their hands, let them help you weigh out the ingredients, encouraging them to scoop flour and spices and pour the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl.
Sift the Dry Ingredients
Your child can hold the sieve, lightly shaking it while you pour in the flour, salt, bicarbonate of soda, ginger and cinnamon for them to sieve into the bowl. Allow your child to stir the dry ingredients together with a wooden spoon, but let them use their hands if they want to.
Melt the Butter and Sugar
Heating the butter, sugar and syrup over the stove isn’t recommended for young children. Have your child watch this step at a safe distance while you stir the butter and sugar together until melted and combined.
Mix Together
Pour the wet ingredients into the bowl with the dry ingredients as your child mixes them together to form a dough. Don’t be afraid to let your child explore the texture of the mixture as it becomes a dough. Once combined, put your dough in the fridge for thirty minutes to firm up.
Cut into Shapes
Once firm, place the dough and a range of cookie-cutter shapes, such as stars, gingerbread men, Santas etc, in front of your child. Make sure to select child-friendly cutters, which are made of plastic instead of metal with no sharp edges. Let them freely cut out shapes and play with the dough before baking for 10-12 minutes.
Decorate
Finally, once the gingerbread biscuits have cooled down, it’s time to decorate! Make some icing by mixing together the icing sugar with water until you get a thick consistency.
Lay out a selection of icing, sprinkles, marshmallows and any other decorations you’d like. Model how to dip your biscuit in the bowl of icing before adding decorations to the top. Let your child add all the decorations they like until they are satisfied with the result.
Blue Nest Montessori
At Blue Nest Montessori School, our day nursery embraces play-based learning activities grounded in Montessori principles, empowering children to learn and explore their interests at their own pace. We also support parents in extending home learning beyond the classroom, giving children a strong foundation for lifelong learning.
For more information about our day nursery or to arrange a visit, contact us today!
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