Cc is for Cupcake

 

If You Give a Cat a Cupcake by Laura Numeroff

Summary: A little girl gives a cat a cupcake, which makes the cat want to add sprinkles. From there a mess occurs and the girl and the cat have several adventures which end up with the cat being reminded of sprinkles and cupcakes. 

This week we learned about the letter “Cc” with the help of a cat and cupcakes.

ABC Letter Box

  
I created an ABC letter box to start out each letter unit. As soon as I pull the box down, the girls get excited to see what objects they can find. They dig through the box with their hands or sometimes I change it up and they use tongs to pick things out.  We listen to the first sound of the object. Then I point to the letter and tell them that this is the letter that makes this sound. This week I added one little twist. I added two objects from A and B. Then I asked them which objects shouldn’t be in the box. (You can find more details about the ABC Letter box and how to use it at Spell Outloud. )

ABC Letter Learning Activities
  

 
We sorted capital and lower case “Cc”s onto felt sorting mats. I had found foam cupcakes in the holiday section of Hobby Lobby during the Christmas season.

 
Both of my girls have been doing the letter handwriting sheets. For my 2yr. old, we read the poem , look for the letters, color the picture, and try to trace at least one letter. My 4yr. old is just now getting into tracing the letters on the page and using it as a handwriting page. This is a tool to introduce letters and letter formation, not a page for mastery. So if your toddler doesn’t want to do it, that’s great! :) Just have fun. The fine motor skills will come along later.

ABC Crafts

 

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Using watercolor paint and salt, the girls decorated their own jumbo cupcakes (Pattern download available below, cupcake craft directions here.)

  
We cooked up some no-bake-nor-eat cupcakes. I got the idea for No Bake Cupcakes from Totally Tots. You can find our complete craft instructions in my cupcake craft post.
 
ABC Songs and Rhymes
 
 
Now this ended up being one of the favorite activities from the unit. I wrote a cupcake poem and created a way for the girls to “give a cat a cupcake” (the cat is a decorated soup can). While we read the poem, the girls looked at the picture to see what kind of cupcake the cat was eating. Then they counted how many cupcakes and fed them to the cat.

Another activity we did was a letter “C” object sort. I placed various ABC objects on a tray. They had to feed the cat only the objects that started with the letter “C” sound (hard C). There are so many other ways to use this set. This project is included in the download link below.

ABC Pretend Play and Games

     

My girls have loved playing with their Melissa and Doug cupcake set! It comes with frosting that can be decorated. On some of the cupcakes we practiced writing our letter “Cc’s”.


Using some of the foam cupcake pieces, I made a pattern in the top row and my daughter repeated the pattern in the next row.

  
All of the kids had fun designing and creating their own cupcake masterpieces with Play-Doh.

Downloads:
 

For each letter I will be providing several downloadable resources plus a letter planner page. You can find these resources at Spell Outloud’s HSPrintables.

Other Resources:
If You Give a Cat a Cupcake Free Activity Printables
Mouse Cookie Books – online games with the characters from the book
If You Give a Cat a Cupcake Puppet Set

Other ABC Resources:
ABC Printables from Homeschool Creations
Letter of the Week Curriculum from COAH
ABC Flashcards and More from 1+1+1=1
ABC Letter Crafts
Songs for Saplings ABC Verses