Pretzel Log Cabins

Pin It

Last night my son was very excited thinking about his three day weekend.  He kept talking about why we had an extra day off so we started reading a book about our Presidents.  While we were reading I got the idea to make a log cabin today.  My son made gingerbread houses like this at school.  I adapted the idea so we could make a log cabin.

I got everything that we would need together.  I used small orange juice cartons, pretzel sticks, graham crackers, frosting, and graham cereal.  Before they started I covered the orange juice cartons with foil.  I thought about using a half gallon carton, but we didn't have any that were empty.

My kindergartner started frosting one side of the cabin.

He alternated short pretzel sticks and longer pretzel sticks.

Deciding to use graham crackers or graham cereal for the house.

My three year old joined in when he saw what his big brother was doing.

My son decided to use the cereal for the roof and the graham cracker for the door.   We even added a chimney.

He wanted to have a man that could live in his house.  I suggested his Lincoln Log people, but he said, "He couldn't get in."  Maybe we should get the Lincoln Logs out later tonight!

The book my kindergartner and I started reading last night was So You Want to Be President? by Judith St. George.  I had this book from my teaching days.  This is quite a long book for him, but we read about half of it last night.  This book has some interesting facts about all of our Presidents and highlights the similarities and differences between them all.  

We learned that eight of our Presidents were born in a log cabin; the White House has a bowling alley, swimming pool, and movie theater; and the President gets to eat whatever he wants!  Some Presidents were trouble makers, while others were honest.  Not only did my son learn some things, but I did too!  We learned about the tallest President, the shortest President, oldest President, youngest President, and the heaviest and lightest President.  All of the facts are amusing and interesting!

This book is a more  difficult listening level than what he is used to, but he did a great job listening and we just stopped after every page to summarize what the author had written.  The back of the book also has a short list of all of the Presidents.  Our book is not the updated version so some of the things in it are not quite as accurate as they were 11 years ago.  I did find an updated version that includes President George W. Bush, but not President Obama. Either way, this is a great book, and the missing pieces aren't hard to fill in!