For this activity, we grabbed another book from the “If You Give a…” series. (My preschooler adores this series!) “If You Give a Cat a Cupcake” by Laura Numeroff is cleverly written and funny. In this story, if you give this adventurous cat a cupcake he will bring you all the way to the beach and back. I love that this book (and the others from this series) lends itself to so many fun follow up activities.
We decided to follow up this story with a math activity. Start by drawing a large cupcake on poster paper. Next, add pom pom balls for the sprinkles. Place cupcake liners on the bottom with number cutouts underneath each liner. I opted to only focus on numbers 0-5, but you can easily increase to 10 if your little one is ready. Your preschooler is ready to start!
Have your little one pick a color. Then use the tweezers to count the number of pom pom balls that matches the number next to the liner. For example, my little one picked these colors (shown in the picture): 0 – yellow, 1 – pink, 2 – orange, 3 – white, 4 – green, and 5 -blue.
We extended this activity by making (and eating!) our own cupcakes. My little one loves to help frost the cupcakes and add sprinkles. Making these small real-life connections between the text and self helps little learners create a more memorable reading experience, because they can relate to the text on a personal level. This builds the foundation for reading comprehension.
Little learners today, leaders tomorrow… happy creating!
Want to try this activity out? Just pick up the materials below and have fun!
Are you a New York State Pre-K Teacher?
This lesson aligns with the Next Gen Standards:
PK.CC.4b – Given a number from 1-10, count out that many objects (modified for 0-5)
PKR9: Make connections between self, text, and world
MATERIALS:
- Poster Board
- Black Marker
- Number Cut-outs
- Kids Tweezers
BOOKS: