Gingerbread Geometry

Our groundhog might have predicted an early spring just yesterday, but we had more snow on the ground today, than we've had all winter so far.

Normally, we make gingerbread men to celebrate the first "real" snow of the season.  We gave up this year before Christmas, and made them with only a skiff of snow of on ground.  Even so, with the children out playing, and the snowflakes falling, I couldn't resist rolling out one more small batch of gingerbread.

Since I hated to lose the entire school day to a February snow, and since we (or at least I) have been in a mathy mood this month, I cut out 2''x2'' squares instead of men...

...scoring them into quarter inch squares (more or less) before baking...

...for a frosting covered, gingerbread geometry lesson to go along with the obligatory mugs of hot chocolate, when the children finally came shivering back inside.

I gave them each a baggie of frosting, and let them pipe along the scored lines while we talked about perimeter and area of the squares.

We frosted a few of the extra squares together to investigate the surface area of a six sided cube...

...and piled up a batch of Pfeffernüssen-ish gingerbread cubes (made with the left-over dough)...

...for a quick lesson on volume, as well.

It's great to be a homeschooler on a snowy day.