Megan and I taught school on Monday.

Megan bought a bag of groceries to donate to the food bank. She taught the children the signs for the food items in the bag and the signs for the ASL alphabet.

I helped the children make gingerbread ornaments.

We had a lot of fun!

Here is a picture of Kathy reading to some of the children.

Here I am with some children cutting out their ornaments

 The girls liked the dough! They played with it like play-doh.

Here are some of the finished ornaments.

Here is the recipe I used to make the dough:

Gingerbread Ornament Dough

Gingerbread dough for craft projects that makes ornaments to hang or put in baskets that look and smell like real cookies and are made with normal ingredients but bake up rock hard and keep for years and smell great for years. Use gingerbread dough and your favorite cookie cutters to make gingerbread man garlands, gingerbread ornaments and houses.

• 3 tbsp. shortening
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup molasses
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 3/4 cup water
• 3 1/2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon of cloves, ginger and cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Beat shortening and sugar together until light and fluffy, stir in molasses. Sift the dry ingredients together. Stir them into shortening mixture in 3 parts alternating with a 1/4 cup of water each time. Dough will be stiff. Refrigerate overnight.

Cut dough into 3 pieces. Knead to warm dough slightly, then roll each piece out about 1/4 inch thick. Cut cookie out with a gingerbread pattern of your choice.

Use a drinking straw to punch hole in center if ornament will be hanging. Place cookies on cookie sheet and bake 20 minutes, turn oven off and let cool in oven.

Remove from cookie sheet and place on rack to dry for about 3 days to totally harden. These cookies are purely for decorative purposes and not to be eaten. If you wish you can seal cookies with 3 coats of clear acrylic and decorate with colorful acrylic pains when dry.