Delectable Spectacle: Paredes fifth-graders create candied houses

They were spread across the cafeteria, table after table of houses covered with candy, each creation a manifestation of a child’s imagination.

The houses, erected by the entire fifth grade class at Paredes Elementary School – more than 160 students – were covered with jelly beans and licorice, M&Ms, mints, and Fruit Loops. Peppermint Santas and candy canes lay sprawled across the lawns.

"I choose that one! I choose that one!" said younger children as they filed past the candied houses. This was no competition, however, just a celebration of the season and the talent of the young artisans. The spectacle before the younger students would give them something to look forward to when they reach fifth grade, said Lupita Arguelles.

"It’s just awesome to see how every child is so creative and unique," said Arguelles, one of eight fifth grade teachers whose students had created the candied houses.

"They all have their own styles and ideas," Arguelles said. "They really look forward to doing that from kindergarten and first grade."

Arguelles said the children had been given certain specifications before building their houses at home out of cardboard and covering them with aluminum foil. They spent Wednesday in class covering them with icing and decorating them, with scrumptious plans to take them home that very day and feast on their sugary delights.

The broad roof of 11-year-old Cesar Yanez’s house was laced with strips of blueberry, lemon, orange, and lime licorice; between these colorful laces were red and green mints. The Graham cracker back door was framed with candy canes and gingerbread men. Jellybeans lay scattered across the lawn that was trimmed with round peppermints.

His mother, Alejandra Yanez, was overjoyed.

"It’s so colorful!" she said. "I am so proud of him, the roof, the snowmen." she said. She gestured more closely at the snowmen and smiled eagerly. "This is what I am going to eat."

Earlier in the day, Katia Fernandez Rojas and her fellow students in Arguelles’s class had been covering their houses and placing all manner of tasty decorations, letting their imaginations run free and uninhibited. They each had great plans for their houses.

"We are trying to put frosting so it will like stick for decorations with candy," said Rojas, 11.

"Cereal, sprinkles, pretzels, M&Ms!" said Annika Larson, 10, across the table from her.

"M&Ms definitely," agreed Rojas, as she spread more icing across one side of her house’s pitched roof. She had already decorated the chimney with fruit loops.

Larson had a bag full of decorations she planned to place on her house.

"You can also do it with licorice, peppermint trees, gum drops, Oreos," she said, pulling out each item. Some of the other children had already placed lines of red or black licorice across their rooftops.

The opportunity for creativity seemed endless. Rojas said the designers of these confectionery creations could also create snowmen from candy and even make ladders.

"You can spell out words like ‘ho-ho-ho,’" she said.

Larson had both sides of her roof covered with icing and had placed fruit loops and sprinkles in Christmas colors. Now she was spreading M&Ms, and she had mint trees, gummy bears, small nutcrackers, Santas, and mini candy canes that she planned to install on the lawn around her house.

Later that afternoon, Larson found she had gotten a little too ambitious. Red licorice dripped from the edges of the roof, but she covered the roof itself with so many mints, blue and green candy canes, yellow and green M&Ms, and Hershey squares that some of it had fallen off. No problem, she’d just repaired the roof, but she was already plucking some sweets off her creation and popping them into her mouth.