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Make a light-up gingerbread house village out of paper bags! These gingerbread house paper circuits are such a fun Christmas STEM activity for learning and to encourage creativity!
How to Make Paper Bag Gingerbread House Paper Circuits
You will need to following supplies for this project:
- Lunch Size Paper Bags
- Markers or Crayons to Decorate
- Copper Tape
- LED Lights
- 3 Volt Lithium Batteries
- Tape
- Paper Clips
- Small Stones
Decorate the front of the bags to look like gingerbread houses. We did ours with markers and white crayons to make some snow. Cut out some windows and doors. Fold the top flap of the bag back.
On the back side of the bag you will make the paper circuit.
You will need two pieces of copper tape. Start the first one at the toplight and go down to the the left bottom of the bag with a corner at the top left. This needs to be one connecting piece.
The second piece starts at the top right and goes down to the bottom, turns the corner and goes to the bottom left. You need a space between this piece and the other piece so they do not touch at either point.
The LED light has two pins and one is longer than the other. The positive end is the longer end. cut or poke a spall hole in the bag at the bottom left corner between the two strips of copper tape. Put the bulb inside the bag and the pins sticking out the back side. Tape the pins down so they are touching the copper tape. I pointed my positive side to the left. Then match up the positive side of the battery with the positive end of the LED light. Add a small piece of tape to secure the battery, but do not cover the part that will touch the copper wire.
When you fold down the paper bag it will touch the negative side of the battery to the negative end of the copper tape/LED light. This will light up the bulb! Use a paper clip to secure it and keep it lit up. I added some small stones into the bottom of the bags to keep them standing up.
Now make a whole village of gingerbread house paper circuits!
Find More Christmas Learning Ideas:
Christmas Fractions
Christmas Tree Spelling
Roll a Gingerbread Man
Poinsettia Ph
Pascal’s Triangle: Christmas Tree Math
Christmas Bell Game
Soft Circuit Christmas Tree
STEAM Kids Christmas Book
12 Days of Christmas Game
Christmas Tree Felt Board
zeena fruchter says
i love love loved this!! thank you so much!
karen says
Love this project idea! Will be doing it in 5th grade STEAM. Note that the link to the lithium batteries goes to something else.
Rebecca Lunceford says
So. . . I have been wanting to do this for a few years now and I decided that this was the year. I teach 1st grade and this year my class is small–24. I have learned a few things to prep with my little friends. 1) Figure out in advance where you want to put the circuit, then fold the top of the bag so that the students don’t draw above this line. Do not put the circuit on first because if students make a mistake then the copper circuit is wasted. 2) My students needed a little step by step of how to make a house with the bag so do a model with them and then set them to it. 3) Teach them how to cut out the windows and doors. A few of mine could once I showed them how and then they helped everyone else. 4. Have the class do a whole class activity or gonoodle for a while and then take a small group to put the circuit together. I did the copper circuit after school on each finished bag. Then the next day, I showed the small groups how to put in the lightbulb and put it on the copper wire–they did this themselves. They opened the battery. To tape the battery I made a tape donut of the copper wire and it holds fine, this is also a good idea to help move the battery in place if needed. Then we folded the bag and paper clipped it. This did take 2 1/2 sessions to complete (making the house, and adding the circuit–total an 1 hour and 30 min. max.–not including the putting on the circuit after school). Would I do it again? Yes. Definitely! Why? because this is a very forgiving, cool project. The copper wire is not as difficult to work with as I thought. If the circuit wasn’t long enough or in the right place I just added more copper tape and carefully moved it over. No big deal. Also, I had students want to add extra winter details after their house was made and it didn’t harm the circuit at all.They used crayons and markers. I did this by myself with my students. Yes, extra adult hands would have been wonderful, but there are not that many parent volunteers at my school. So, if you are thinking that you would never do this with a young class, I hope this helps you.