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Gingerbread House Challenge from the Student Perspective

Kayla C. - Junior, Yorkville High School - Rudolph House

 

My favorite part of the house ended up being the little Rudolph we all made together with Chef Conover. Chef was a BIG help and taught me how to properly melt and use decorating chocolate which I ended up enjoying a lot more than I thought I would.

 

The biggest challenge I had while working with my team was finding ways to help my team, and being able to bond with my team in a substantial way. I typically prefer to work by myself; I feel I work better alone. This project not only tested the hearts of my team, but also the resilience, innovativeness, patience, and perseverance of me and my team members. We all came super close to our breaking points.

 

Through this amazing experience, I have changed into a much calmer and honest person. I don't mess as much anymore or joke around as much - in the professional environment at least. I loved this project and I am glad I was able to work through our challenges.

 

 

Caleb H. – Junior, Somonauk High School - Spaceland House

 

I believe that our greatest challenges as a team depends on which way you look at it. Whether we're learning a new skill, or adjusting our teamwork, we were able to conquer any challenges that came our way, regardless of the situation.

 

My personal favorite part of our creation was undoubtedly how well we were able to patch holes and cracks in our structure that would have easily been “make or break” for our project. You can’t even tell that there are flaws in the design of our buildings because of our patch work. I enjoyed practicing new skills that I would normally not even think to try such as piping, or fondant.

 

I did not enjoy, however, the hard adjustments we had to make in order to make this plan work out, but anybody could tell you that no plan ever works out perfectly, and I’m just happy it ended up good in the end. Keeping focus was a key part of success in this project. Although some could only find themselves thinking of the task at hand, I often found myself not being as productive as possible. In which case I would fix my mistakes and get right back to work and make an effort to make our project the best it could be.

 

I learned that however hard it may be, anybody can make a good team if they all share the common goal of getting the job done. Our team worked well together and in the end we were successful in making a splendid project that matched, or even surpassed our original expectations.

 

 

Tony C. – Senior, Yorkville High School - Rudolph House

 

My favorite part of my creation was frosting the roof of the house. One of the things I liked was adding the final touches to the house, e.g., sprinkles and frosting.

 

The biggest challenges my team faced where that we had set things to do and the other team members would want to do the same job you were doing. One of the things I didn't like doing was the cave, because we ran into a lot of problems trying to assemble it.

 

What I learned from this project is that even though things look bad, there is always a way of making things work. I learned that not all my teammates have the mindset I do. Through this project I learned about responsibility and perseverance and how to work with others that work differently than I do. 

 

 

Hayley R. – Senior, Somonauk High School - Spaceland House

 

The biggest challenges my team had faced was working together to get the exact image we had in our head. Our project had some ups and downs because we struggled to make sure everyone had something to do and everyone was doing it right. We ended up making it work though, and it turned out great!

 

My favorite part of the creation was the galaxy fondant board. The part I liked about this was making the fondant planets and galaxy; what I didn’t like was frosting the houses. This was personally challenging for me because I wasn’t good at communicating with my group on what to do. At some points we’d all be watching each other or not know what to do next, but we figured it out. Since the project wasn’t turning out exactly how I wanted I was a little frustrated, but I worked with it anyway because we made it turn out good.

 

What I learned about myself is not everything will always go how I want, especially when I’m working with other people with different images in their head. I will continue to better myself for future projects while knowing everything won’t turn out exactly how I want, but when things go wrong you can fix it. This project helped me personally realize what I will have to overcome working with other groups of people in my near future.

 

 

Lilly S. – Senior, Somonauk High School - Willy Wonka House

 

As a team, I feel that Cali, Gabe, and I worked well on the idea and the functionality of the gingerbread house along with decorations. Our biggest challenge would be designating jobs to each of us because often times we were in a holding pattern. Another thing would be that our houses kept falling and our gate kept breaking - but eventually we fixed it.

 

My favorite part about the creation would be the bright green coconut grass along with the river and the waterfall. Something I really enjoyed doing would be the colorful pumpkins that I made from fondant, and the hardened melting-chocolate river.

 

In a way, this gingerbread house challenged me. It challenged me by putting me in a lead position having to give jobs and instructions for most of the way. It also challenged me in the sense of anger management when things would go wrong multiple times in a row. I learned that when working in a group, it’s important that everyone's ideas are valued and added to the board. Sometimes things don’t go exactly as they are planned, but with extra time management and some royal icing, all the pieces will come together.

 

 

Alex A. – Junior, Plano High School - Spaceland

 

I personally think the biggest challenge was when we had to restart when things did not turn out correctly. Although I like that we had to restart it as well because it made it look hundreds of times better. I really liked the sun house that I made, which took forever but it was worth it. I made it with swirls of royal icing to make it look like gas exploding. I also liked the space man we made; it was pretty cool.

 

I liked making the board and working with my team; they were cool to work with. It made it fun and we had good communication. But I didn't like that one of them got sick and had to sit out the rest of the time. But it was fine because we stepped up our game, and made space look really good, in my opinion.

 

How did this challenge me? Well first of all my group leader got sick, so we had to come up with everything without her, so it was a lot harder, but we managed. I learned that Caleb and I work pretty well together so we can accomplish goals.