Cc is for Cupcakes !

Well the work week has begun again- after an awesome weekend with my little munchkin!

   She was fascinated with caterpillars a few weekends ago and then we spent last weekend just hanging out for Mother’s Day.  

This past weekend we were back to our learning fun!

 We picked up where we left off, with the letter Cc. We reviewed the letter and she practiced tracing the letter Cc (in her princess dress up clothes), using an Alphabet Flip Chart that I don’t utilize in my classroom.

   I wanted to move away from caterpillars---simply because I was getting a little tired of them, so I decided to focus on my little munchkin’s sweet spot= CUPCAKES!

 I knew we were going to be in for some FUN learning!  =)

   I really enjoy the books by Laura Numeroff and so we began our Cupcake Fun by reading the book, “If You Give A Cat A Cupcake”. I found some extension activities for the book that were appropriate for her to do at Totally Tots blog and I also used printables from Spell Out Loud.

She “fed” the cat different colored cupcakes. I gave her a random number and color and I encouraged her to count each cupcake aloud as she placed them in the can.                                                            (BTW, as you can probably see, the cat was made from a recycled can= I must warn that if you do this activity, please make sure to be careful with the inside of the can. My poor little munchkin got a pretty nasty cut as she tried to play with it after our Counting activity.)

  A lightbulb went off in my head as I saw how well she was sorting the cupcake pieces by color and I quickly made a magnetic graph.  I grabbed a cookie sheet, some green strips of paper and some magnetic strips. I threw some strips on a few cupcakes, made a simple graph and asked her to put the cupcakes where they belonged on the graph. 

  And then when she finished it (without any help from me), I asked her to count each column and did some teaching on the concept of More or Less.  

( I did good thinking on my toes at 8:00 in the morning- on a Saturday, huh??) 

   
   Then I changed the pace a little bit, cuz it was 9 in the morning and I had been up since 6:45…. I pulled out her baking stuff, her cupcake play set by Melissa & Doug, and some cupcake shaped eggs leftover from Easter. She had a blast, making, decorating and even counting cupcakes.

    And when she was done with her baking & decorating, we had a little Cupcake & Coffee party… she must have served me at least 7 cups of coffee within 20 minutes…she must have seen how tired momma was!

   

  On Sunday, I kept with the Letter Cc and Cupcake theme (cuz we both love it so much) and so I put out just a few activities for her to work on her fine motor skills.

 I borrowed an idea I found here at The mOffat Girls Blog to allow my little munchkin to practice her cutting skills. I placed some cupcake stickers on a strip of paper and drew black lines where I asked her to cut. The scissors I used are some I purchased awhile back and I am wondering if she is ready to move up to bigger scissors. Seeing as we haven’t been doing too much with scissors lately, she did a really good job!

    She practiced writing the Letter Cc from Spell Out Loud and well, as you can see, we need to do a little more practice on coloring! =)

    I found some cupcake stickers left over from Valentine’s Day and created  a simple graph. Working with the stickers allowed her to practice those fine motor skills by trying to peel the stickers off the sheet. She did pretty darn good on the whole graphing part. I gave her a huge Smiley Face on her paper when she was done-which she loves!

  And what’s a Cupcake theme without a fun, yummy art project?

I made some Puffy Paint, using some combination of shaving cream and glue… I can’t tell you the exact combo because she was so eager to do the activity, I had to do it all so quick! But if you ever make it, a few swirls of glue should do the trick. I also let her choose which color she wanted her cupcake to be… and BAD idea on my part to use food coloring!! 

What was I thinking? I sure don’t have a clue…especially since I had paint sitting in her art supply crate!

    Anyhow, she swirled the shaving cream and glue together and then I added the food coloring. She painted a cupcake top shape, while I cut out a cupcake liner shape from a cupcake sheet from my scrapbooking stash.

 After putting the two pieces together, she added the main ingredient- SPRINKLES!

     She wanted to make a small blue one right after her pink one, so we did it all over again.

Now, don’t those look delicious enough to take a bite out of?!

    We ran out of fun learning time because we had to get out of the house and enjoy the weather… BUT I have a few more Cupcake activities in mind that I know she will love!

(The ideas involve doing some baking, creating a new sensory bin and some Alphabet Puzzles created by me… Can we say Freebie ??)

    And here is my little Cupcake Princess. in her Cupcake nightgown!

   Thanks for taking a peek into my little munchkin’s world of Learning Fun!

 Stay tuned….. =)