The Plan for the Gingerbread House: A STEM Engineering Story

by Darcy Pattison

Come one, come all! The Gingerbread Fair opens soon!

Teams of kids are baking, building, and decorating. The project guidelines are clear: the winning house must stand upright on its own and a gingerbread boy and girl must fit inside.

Sounds easy? It would be except…cookies burn, the icing is too thin, the house caves-in, someone is eating the candy decorations, and—oh!—they forgot about the gingerbread boy and girl.

Follow the team as they struggle to create the perfect gingerbread house. Young engineers will learn to overcome problems and press on to a finished house. At the end, they evaluate their efforts and plan for a better gingerbread house.

Need a winter STEM engineering project? This book inspires the budding engineers to think about the classic gingerbread house in a new way. Written in a lyrical rhyme, it’s sure to please the language arts folks, too.

Genres: Picture Books

32 pages, Paperback

Published October 12, 2021

About the author

DARCY PATTISON (www.darcypattison.com) is published in ten languages.

Children’s book author Darcy Pattison writes award-winning fiction and non-fiction books for children. Her works have received starred PW, Kirkus, and BCCB reviews. Awards include the Irma Black Honor award, five NSTA Outstanding Science Trade Books, Eureka! Nonfiction Honor book, Junior Library Guild selections, and NCTE Notable Children’s Book in Language Arts. She’s the 2007 recipient of the Arkansas Governor’s Arts Award for Individual Artist for her work in children’s literature.

Reviews

[StoryTimeReadAloud · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is a gingerbread house building contest with a clear set of instructions--build a house for a gingerbread boy and girl to fit inside and to hold its shape. The children proceed and make some mistakes along the way, providing some lessons they learned at the end of the book.

The book should be rated on two fronts. One as an engineering book and the other as a picture book.
The book was fine and fun to approach from an engineering perspective--it talks about measuring, making a plan, putting the plan into action, learning from the plan and making adjustments, watching for details, etc. Good if you are looking at a story that is focused on the engineering side (and learning from mistakes).
As a picture book I think it falls into the "fine" category. The text has a rhyme similar in style to "I know an old lady who swallowed a fly" but instead repeating "Oh the marvelous plan--for our gingerbread house." So fun to have the chance for kids to read along with you as they get familiar with it. The drawings are the same--fine.

[Donna Boock · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a beautiful mix of poetic verse and diverse illustrations, of STEM challenges and pure fun, and of learning how to cope with failure and transform it to success. I’d recommend it for parents, teachers, and every kid who likes to read, bake or decorate! It’s a holiday must-read in my opinion and a new tradition for our family-even if we might cheat and build with graham crackers if the season gets too busy!

[Carolyn Bragg · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not genuinely STEM related. This book is about children having disasters while trying to make a house. There is no measurement, cause and effect, or anything to learn. And I agree with others that the rhyming is awkward. The author is a very nice lady, I wish this had not been falsely marketed. (It fails to teach the most basic lesson: First, you must follow the recipe--or instructions--exactly, THEN you can experiment.)

[Tricia Gardella · Rating 5 out of 5]

A different kind of holiday fun.

The moral of this story is there is never a need to allow a few little mistakes to ruin a grand plan. When creators have the gumption to deal their mistakes it might happen that even a grand prize is not out of reach.

[Debra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute story with a focus on engineering. I like most that mistakes/errors are made and redone along the way to entering their Gingerbread house in a contest.


I feel like we can use this book in our Gingerbread story unit as well as with our Leprechaun trap building unit.

[Gina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I get what this book is trying to accomplish, but the format and story was hard to follow. I wish it was done a little differently, because then it would make more sense with the kids experimenting with more explanation. I do not see the STEM in this book.

[Andréa]

Note: I accessed a digital review copy of this book through Edelweiss.

[Laurie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book for teaching STEM: perseverance, reflecting, and sequencing. Great for elementary. Could even be used to discuss the steps of design/ engineering.

[Syntha Green · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun cumulative story

[Grace Cole · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was cute, but I really thought it would go more into the STEM part of it. It's being advertised as a STEM story, and there wasn't much of that in the book.

[Lindsay · Rating 1 out of 5]

I think this was mostly written by A.I.

[McKayla Buck · Rating 1 out of 5]

Meh book